


Back to the Holler

by antiRePurp



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 10:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 34,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14871677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antiRePurp/pseuds/antiRePurp
Summary: What if Sonic Forces had played out a little differently after all? What if instead of six months Sonic went missing for six years? "Back to the Holler" tells the story of now a 21-year-old Sonic the Hedgehog, who has been thought to be dead for the past six years of his life. Sonic must tackle not only the troubles the reigning Eggman Empire is causing to the world, but also the difficult reunions with his old friends who don't all agree that Sonic's return is a positive thing. Will he be able to take back the world from Eggman and Infinite while reigniting his old friendships, or will he finally meet his fate a second, more permanent time?





	1. Welcome Back, Superstar

“Sonic!”

He heard Tails shout his name as he was slammed down to the hard concrete. Sonic’s head ached, his body was on burning from the pain. But he had to get up. He had to help Tails. For one last time he tried to peel himself off the ground. It was too much. His arm gave in, and Sonic hit his cheek as he fell back down with a grunt.

“T-Tails...” Sonic uttered. “Tails, please, run... get away from here...” His vision was getting blurrier as his consciousness was beginning to give up. Tails’ receding footsteps echoed in his ears along with the laugh of the jackal who had beaten the hedgehog who was supposed to save the world, as his vision faded to black.

Sonic the Hedgehog was gone.

***

The laboratory was at the outskirts of the city. It hadn’t been marked as an important location on the resistance’s maps, it simply seemed to be another one of Eggman’s several abandoned facilities serving no purpose to the dictator these days. Yet it was buzzing with life, quite literally, with several functional robots guarding the entrances and hallways. Ava had never been one to deviate from her missions, but the unusual amounts of security near a base so uninteresting had alerted her. The Infinite sighting in the city could wait for another day, this was far more suspicious.

The iron menaces had certainly made getting indoors a challenge, but Ava had managed to find a less guarded air vent at the back of the building. Going through by force had never been a fancy of hers, she preferred to make little noise and go incognito as long as she was allowed. It made gathering information much easier, anyway. Ava was however always ready to dismantle a few robots at a time, which was something she had had to do in order to access the vent. The rest was relatively smooth sailing. She crawled through the vent and dropped down into a broom closet she came across, hoping it was situated somewhere where the facility’s security was lower. She got lucky, and exited into a hallway with no robots in sight. There were security cameras as expected, but most of them seemed to be out of order. How typical of Eggman, Ava thought to herself. No drive to maintain anything but the big bases. She sneaked past the few working cameras and delved deeper into the building.

After wandering several hallways with extreme caution Ava begun to wonder if she misjudged the facility’s importance. Most rooms she had come across were empty or possessed nothing of importance, mainly old blueprints of robots. Those were practically useless as Miles had already reconstructed most of them by inspecting the robots himself. The fox was a real genius all right. Ava peeked around a corner to the next hallway, and was finally pleasantly surprised. The corridor was filled with robots. Ava’s fist clenched around her electric wispon and she took a deep breath. There was no other way around this. With precision she threw herself in the hallway and fired a whip of electricity form her wispon, blasting through most of the robots. Alarms started to blare, and the surviving robots started firing at the dog. Fighting fire with fire, Ava blasted her wispon again. Her veins were rushed with adrenaline, and her brain was shooting her with instructions. A sharp right. Duck. Jump. Fire. Grappling hook. On your left. Fire. Fire. Fire.

It took seconds for it all to be over. The wispon, one of Miles’ finest inventions, was a powerful tool of destruction. But even the wispon couldn’t stop the alarms that were in the process of drawing more robots to the scene. Ava swiftly begun to look through the rooms in the hall to find whatever it was the robots were there to guard. Encountering an empty room after another, Ava began to lose her cool. The robots had to be there for a reason, there were simply too many for it to be an error. The alarms blaring in Ava’s ears certainly didn’t help her stay calm.

“Oh for fuck’s sake why are you here!?” she yelled out as she flung open the last door. The sight made her heart skip a beat. A see-though capsule filled with liquid was standing in the middle of the room, with various cords and tubes connected to it. A monitor next it was showing life-readings from the unconscious creature trapped within the capsule. Ava took a sharp breath. The description Knuckles had given her way back when matched perfectly. She acted quickly, and started figuring out a way of getting the prisoner out of the capsule. She had been right, this was way more important than whatever Infinite was doing in the city.

***

Alarms. A million alarms screaming at the back of his head, wanting him to wake up. Sonic slowly began to open his eyes. His vision was blurred by something, but he saw red lights flashing on and off, and a figure running around him. Sonic blinked a few times and tried to reach out to them. His hand came in touch with an invisible wall. Sonic frowned and squinted his eyes, trying to focus his vision. The figure took some more shape. They were holding cords and tubes in their hand while... typing on a computer? The figure violently threw the contents of their other hand to the floor, making Sonic flinch. He tried to speak out, but his words were muffled by something. He was getting sleepy for some reason. Sonic slowly blinked a few times, ready to drift off. The figure turned their head and looked at Sonic. They grabbed something from the floor, something that looked like a pipe. And they swung it.

Pieces of glass flew everywhere, and liquid splashed on the floor, filling the room and making various electronic objects short circuit. Sonic fell to the floor, coughing and gasping for air. The figure that he now identified as a yellow dog, knelt beside him.

“Goodness gracious are you alright?!” she cried out. Sonic tried to steady his coughs and smiled awkwardly.

“Y-yeah, I’m good,” he wheezed. “Who are you? What’s going on?” The dog took a quick look at the door and practically pulled Sonic off the floor.

“Explanations gotta wait, pal, we’ve got bigger problems to deal with.” She grabbed Sonic hand and rushed through the door into the hallway. They came to a quick halt as robots were running in from both ends of the corridor.

“Shit,” the dog cussed. Sonic looked around him, took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the dog’s hand.

“Don’t worry, buddy,” he said with a grin. “I know exactly how to deal with situations like this.” The dog didn’t have time to give him a doubtful and confused look as Sonic had already begun to sprint towards the wall of robots ahead of them while dragging the dog with him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” she screamed, but Sonic just laughed.

“What I do best: going fast!” he gushed, and with a quick step Sonic broke the sound barrier. It felt as if time itself slowed down for him as he bashed himself through the robots, shattering them into a million pieces by the speed he was going at. He turned right, bashed through even more of the scrap metal Eggman calls his robots, and he kept on going towards the wall ahead of him. The dog, still tagging along by holding on to Sonic’s hand with her life, took a sharp breath.

“A wall!” she yelled out, “A wall, you idiot, there’s a wall!”

“Won’t be for much longer!” Sonic grinned, and sped up despite his companion’s protests. And staying true to his word, Sonic shortened the wall’s lifespan by crashing through it and flying into the air with the power of his speed. The hedgehog laughed with excitement and joy, he felt like it had been ages since he had had a chance to stretch his legs and have fun. The speed carried Sonic and the dog for a moment before giving in and dropping the duo to the ground in the woods next to the laboratory. Both stuck the landing with style. Sonic puffed out his chest and looked at his companion with a cheeky smile.

“See, told ya so!” he boasted, but the dog didn’t look all that impressed. She rubbed her face with a groan.

“That was the stupidest, most irrational idea anyone has ever executed, and I say this as someone who works with an echidna with fists for his brains,” she grunted. Sonic’s eyes widened.

“Wait, an echidna? You mean Knuckles the Echidna? You know him?” he asked. The dog nodded.

“I work in his resistance.”

“Resistance?”

“Yes, the resistance. The resistance against the Eggman Empire.”

“But he doesn’t have an empire?” The dog let out a tired laugh.

“Oh, you wish, you wish all you want, pal.” Sonic blinked and frowned. The dog looked at him curiously.

“Did you not know that?” she asked. Sonic nodded.

“I mean sure he knocked me out yesterday - or his friend or associate or whatever did - but I don’t think that’s-”

“Wait, what, yesterday? What do you mean yesterday?” The dog interrupted. It was Sonic’s turn to look at her curiously.

“I mean that I got knocked out yesterday? What’s so hard to understand about that?” he asked. The dog stared at him, as if to judge or understand him. Sonic looked back awkwardly. The situation was kind of embarrassing to him.

“You know what?” the dog finally spoke. “I’ll take you to the resistance’s headquarters. We’ll figure this out there, okay? This isn’t exactly the best place to explain things.”

“Yeah I guess you have a point,” Sonic nodded thoughtfully. “Oh, but wait, just one thing. Who are you? What’s your name?”

“Ava, Ava the Dog,” the dog said, grabbed Sonic’s arm and started leading the way.

“And you’re Sonic the Hedgehog, and god I can’t believe you’re still alive.”


	2. Nice to See You Again

“So who exactly are in the resistance?”

Ava closed the door after her, leaving the sewers behind her and Sonic. They weren’t exactly the nicest way into the building, but it was safer to go through there rather than above ground. The dog looked at the hedgehog curiously.

“I suppose you want to know about the people you know already?” she asked, then continued: “There’s of course Knuckles, our captain of sorts you could say, likes organizing missions and whatnot. Makes him feel important.”

“That’s my Knuckles all right,” Sonic chuckled. Ava smiled.

“Miss Amy manages the communications around here, makes sure that the radio lines stay hidden from Eggman and keeps us all in touch. Vector helps her, he also cooks for us. I don’t think he does a whole bunch of fieldwork these days, that’s more Espio’s thing. He’s excellent I will say, stealthy as hell. Keeps himself well-hidden. I like him.”

“Charmy?”

“He... does his best. Hangs around, helps anyone in need. It’s been a while but you probably understand why we won’t let him do any big missions.” Sonic nodded.

“Then there’s Silver. He’s a curious one, with that whole telekinesis thing he’s got going on. And miss Rouge, Omega and Shadow have their own unit who works together with us.”

“Shadow’s in the resistance?” Sonic asked, the mention of his old rival surprising him. 

“Yes, he’s with us as well. He has a tendency to play by his own rules, but it’s not like we’re exactly the most organized group in the history, anyway.”

“...Tails?” Sonic asked carefully. Ava looked at him with a puzzled look.

“Tails? Tails who?” Sonic’s stomach turned.

“M-Miles Prower? The child genius, a two-tailed fox? Is he here?” he stammered.

“Oh, Miles! Yes, of course, I don’t know what we would do without him!” Ava exclaimed. “What an excellent kid he is, he even made me my wispon.” Sonic exhaled and tried to laugh off his initial stress.

“Yeah, Tails is one good kid all right.” The duo had made their way from the sewer entrance to a hallway with a double door in the middle of the wall. It was the only entryway in the entire corridor. Ava put her hand on one of the handles, hesitating a bit. Sonic raised an eyebrow and looked at her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. Ava side-eyed the hedgehog, then shifted her eyes back onto the doors.

“I - I really didn’t think this through. They haven’t seen you in a while, I don’t know how good of an idea it is for you to just walk in,” she conceded. Sonic shrugged.

“Hey, what’s the worst that could happen? I’m sure they’ll be happy to see me again,” he encouraged. Ava didn’t look convinced. She sighed and bit her lip.

“I can’t think of a better way to go about this, anyway,” she concluded, dismissing Sonic’s words. “I’ll go first and have a word with them, you follow when you get the cue, alright?” Sonic nodded, and Ava turned the handle. She stepped into the room, Sonic waiting behind the other door.

“Hey guys,” he heard Ava say, and a bunch of voices replied.

“How was the city? Or was Infinite just taking a nice stroll through the park?” a familiar voice asked, followed by polite laughter. Ava chuckled, nervousness in her voice.

“Oh, god, I wish today would’ve been that simple,” she said. “No, captain, I unfortunately have to report that I deviated from the mission this time.”

“What, why?”

“I found something, and I feel like you all will deem it far more important than whatever it was that Infinite was doing.”

“Well goddamn, that has to be something big then, huh? What is it?” Ava took a deep breath.

“I am sure this will be very shocking to you, so please brace yourselves,” she said, stepped back and gestured Sonic to step up. The hedgehog nodded, and walked into the room with caution.

The moment that followed seemed to stretch into hours. While everyone was shocked Sonic could’ve sworn no two people reacted exactly the same way. Knuckles, Amy and Espio, who were gathered around a table next to various monitors and screens, were all in shock. Espio’s jaw dropped, Knuckles froze in place and some tears seemed to escape from Amy’s eyes. Charmy, flying next to a couch Vector was sitting on, gasped and covered his mouth with his hands. Vector swiftly took off his headphones, gasping as well. Silver, sitting next to the couch, looked towards Sonic with glassy eyes and took a sharp breath. Shadow, standing next to a wall, blinked and lost his cool composition, if only briefly. Sonic passed a tongue over his lips. No one’s reaction matched his expectations. He blinked and cleared his throat.

“Um, h-hey guys, long time no see, huh..?” he quietly laughed, trying to break the ice to no avail as everyone remained silent. A drop of sweat rolled across Sonic’s temple. Had he done something wrong? Why wasn’t anyone saying anything?

“Is everything alright?” he desperately chuckled. Shadow was the first one to react. He walked over to Sonic with intimidation in his step and grabbed him by the shoulder. Sonic flinched and met Shadow’s eyes. His upset, perhaps even concerned eyes?

“Six years,” he whispered sharply. Sonic blinked and opened his mouth to say something, but Shadow cut him off.

“We were looking for you everywhere, we were so concerned about you, where the fuck have you been for six years?” Sonic swallowed.

“What do you mean six years?” he asked with caution. “Has it really been... six years?” Shadow’s eyes widened. He took a few steps back, and rubbed his eyes with him thumb and index finger, careful not to touch the scar on his left eyelid. Knuckles, recovered from the initial shock, placed his hand on Shadow’s shoulder.

“Take it easy, dude,” the echidna said in a calm voice. Shadow sighed deeply and opened his eyes, looking straight at Sonic. The blue hedgehog felt another drop of sweat slide across his face. Upsetting Shadow was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

“You’re not angry with me, are you?” Sonic nervously laughed. The corner of Shadow’s mouth twitched and he clenched his fist.

“Do you have any idea just how much trouble you made us go through?” he whispered, choosing his words carefully. “I don’t understand how you have the nerve to act like everything’s alright.” Sonic took a sharp breath, taking offense to Shadow’s words.

“No, that’s not- I mean, I didn’t know that it had been so long, I-”

“Exactly how did you not know it had been six years? What, lost the track of time running around like an idiot? Too busy having fun?”

“Shadow that’s enough,” Knuckles stepped in. Shadow gave him a quick, dismissive look and sighed deeply.

“I went through hell and back looking for him, I got injured on those missions, we all did, all just for him to turn up six years later with a ‘haha long time no see’? Are you kidding me?”

“Shadow, please,” Ava interrupted. The black hedgehog looked straight at the dog. “I found him in an abandoned Eggman lab, he was in stasis. There was no way for him to tell time had passed.”

“And you didn’t bother telling him?”

“No, but you must understand that-”

“-he was having too much fun tearing the place apart like a child for you to point out how long it had been, I get it,” Shadow smiled, his tired voice filled with sarcasm. He grabbed a handgun from the table, swiftly put it in the holster on his waist and walked towards the doors.

“Where are you going?” Knuckles demanded. Shadow gave him a belittling look.

“Green Hill.”

“Rouge and Omega are already taking care of the situation there, y’know.”

“Thank you, mister obvious.”

“And that gun isn’t loaded, y’know.”

“I don’t carry them loaded, ‘y’know’.” Shadow walked out the door and slammed it shut after him. Knuckles let out a loud sigh. Amy, done with wiping her eyes, placed a hand on his shoulder.

“He’ll calm down when he gets to talk to them about this,” she reassured. The room once again turned their attention to Sonic, and once again a long, pressing silence took over. Sonic let out a groan.

“Guys, please, can we not do this?” he begged. “Are you all mad at me, too?” Knuckles let out a silent sniffle. Sonic blinked in confusion, but before he could say anything the eye-patched echidna enclosed him into a tight hug.

“Of course we’re not mad at you, you silly hedgehog,” he smiled. “Of course not.”

***

Despite Shadow’s unexpected behavior and unfortunate departure leaving a bad taste in Sonic’s mouth the rest of his friends made the reunion much worth it. Vector, Charmy and Amy had joined Knuckles with hugging their long-lost friend, and Vector adamantly stated he was going to bake a cake for the occasion despite Ava reminding him exactly how expensive ingredients were these days. Espio stuck to simply shaking Sonic’s hand and mentioning that he while he wasn’t upset with the hedgehog he also wasn’t sure how to feel about his return. Sonic had given a nervous chuckle in response, saying that it was alright. Silver wasn’t quite sure about his feelings either and didn’t know what to say.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he said. Others started to chuckle, and Vector and Charmy lost themselves entirely and had the best laugh they had had in a while. Sonic frowned in confusion.

“What’s so funny?” he asked. Silver let out a gentle laugh and pointed at his eyes.

“I’m blind, you dummy, technically speaking I was right, I’m never seeing you again!” Although he was the master of poor puns himself Sonic couldn’t help but to look at Silver in mighty disappointment. The latter smiled.

“I mean, I can use my telekinesis to sort of see. I guess it’s more like feeling things with your mind, but it works.”

“So you can see my face right now?”

“Oh, yes, and it is the greatest reward,” Silver grinned. Sonic sighed. He looked around the room. It was rather small, and the monitors and radio equipment took most of the space. A couch was fitted on the other side of the place, and a ladder lead up to a small balcony that loomed over the said couch. It was almost as if the whole space was intentionally color-coded to be in stylish gray scale. But the furniture and decoration weren’t what interested Sonic so much. Someone very important was missing.

“Where’s Tails?” he finally asked. The mood in the room shifted, and everyone turned to look at Amy and Knuckles. The latter exhaled thoughtfully.

“Yes, Miles, I was wondering how we should tell him about this,” he answered. Knuckles looked at the others.

“Perhaps it would be best for most of us to leave for that. After all it’s Miles, and Sonic was - erm, is - his closest friend.” Everyone nodded in agreement.

“ I can go fetch him,” Amy offered, receiving an encouraging nod from Knuckles.

“Alright, if you’d be as kind as to leave now, everyone. Let Miles have his privacy and whatnot,” he ordered. The Chaotix, Silver and Ava exited the room, going elsewhere in the building. Knuckles turned to look at Amy.

“Do you think I should go as well?” he asked. Amy shook her head thoughtfully.

“No, I think it’ll be fine. You’ve known him longer than I have, after all,” she remarked, and turned to Sonic. “Unless you don’t want him present, of course.”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Sonic assured. Amy nodded with a smile, and went on her way to fetch the fox. Sonic hopped to sit on the edge of the table, and Knuckles stood next to him. The two were quiet for a minute, until Knuckles cleared his throat. Sonic turned from idly staring at the floor to looking at his friend.

“I just, er, wanted to say that I for one am glad to have you back,” Knuckles finally said. “I’m sorry for Shadow’s behavior earlier, I have no idea what came over him there. Must’ve been the shock.” Sonic let out an awkward laugh.

“No problem, no problem,” he said quickly. Knuckles side-eyed him thoughtfully with his left eye.

“Mind if I ask, have you thought about what you’re going to say to Miles?” the echidna asked. Sonic’s eyes widened. That was an excellent question, what was he going to say to his best friend?

“Uh,” he began, “I, I don’t really know, I really don’t know...” A small smile appeared on Knuckles’ lips for a second. How typical of Sonic.

“If I were you I’d choose my words carefully, your disappearance did hit him pretty hard...” he advised. Sonic passed a tongue over his lips again. He felt like he had swallowed a baseball bat.

Within the following minute Sonic and Knuckles heard noises from the hallway. Sonic clenched his other fist. Knuckles noticed, placed his hand over Sonic’s shoulder reassuringly and smiled. The door opened, and Amy stepped inside, a tired, two-tailed fox wearing a bandanna right behind her.

“I honestly don’t see what could be so damn impor-” His complaining was cut short as he looked at the table and saw Sonic. The blue hedgehog waved at his young friend awkwardly.

“H-hey buddy, it’s, uh, been a while, hasn’t it...?” he said with a nervous smile. Tails was frozen in place. He began to shiver.

“T-Tails?” Sonic asked and swallowed. Tears started to well up in Tails’ eyes. The fox sobbed slightly, his eyes still fixed on Sonic. The hedgehog’s eyes widened. He jumped off the table, rushed to his friend and carefully engaged him into a hug.

“H-hey, what’s wrong, are you, are you okay?” Sonic frantically asked, freaking out a little. Tails’ sobbing strengthened. He slowly wrapped his arms around Sonic, his legs giving out as he did so. His tears drenched both his own and Sonic’s fur as the hedgehog sat down on the floor, still hugging his friend.

“I - I thought, I thought you were...” Tails muttered in between his sobs. Sonic gently stroked the fox’s back, having no idea what to say. His own eyes started to water as well, even though to him it felt like he had just seen Tails yesterday. The fox kept on crying, and Sonic kept holding on to him.

“I can’t believe you’re, you’re...”

“It’s alright,” Sonic said, his voice shaking a little. “You don’t have to say anything. It’s alright, I’m here. I won’t let go. Not this time.”

***

About a quarter of an hour later the four of them were sipping hot chocolate Amy had brought for them. Tails had calmed down, and was embarrassed about his previous outburst of emotions. The others kept assuring him that it was okay.

“It’s important to allow yourself to cry and to not bottle it in,” Amy lectured with a gentle voice.

“I feel so stupid, though,” Tails murmured. Knuckles lightly poked the fox’s side.

“Hey, even I cried when I saw this that this big ol’ spiky boy had returned,” he laughed. Tails smiled slightly. He shifted his eyes over to Sonic.

“You really didn’t know it had been six years?” Sonic shook his head.

“I had no clue. I mean, when Ava found me, she implied that some time had passed, but we were a bit too busy running from robots to delve deeper into it,” he explained. Tails nodded.

“That’s understandable.”

“Can I ask you guys something though?” Sonic began. “Why does everyone call Tails by his first name?” Tails looked a bit embarrassed again.

“Uh, I was just more comfortable with it since you were gone, you know?” he said. “It’s just that, you always called me Tails, it was kind of our thing. When you were gone it just felt... wrong.” Tails sipped his hot chocolate, Sonic looked down into his own cup. He really meant more to Tails than he had ever thought he had.

“Well uh, while I’m on a roll here, what about your eye, Knuckles? And you’ve changed out of your old dress, Amy.” Knuckles touched the eye-patch over his right eye, Amy looked down at her hoodie and sweatpants.

“I just wanted some more comfortable clothing honestly,” Amy said. “It can also get kind of cold around here, the heating has it’s issues.”

“As for my eye, I lost it on a mission, how long was it, four years ago or something? It was Infinite’s fault. Hate that jackal,” Knuckles explained.

“Infinite?” Sonic asked. “Is he that guy who defeated me?”

“Correct,” Tails butted in. “He’s not as scary nowadays since we know what’s up with him now. Took us a while, though.”

“And he works with Eggman?”

“Sooort of, yes. They’re allies, but that’s as far as we know. They could be best buddies or hate each other’s guts, who knows,” Tails shrugged. “Anyway, Infinite is really powerful, he draws his powers from the ruby on his chest. It’s called the Phantom Ruby apparently, although Infinite only has some kind of a prototype of it that seems to draw its energy from the real thing. His whole niche is that with the ruby Infinite is able to create illusions and so-called virtual realities, where anything could happen. If you get damaged in a virtual reality it carries over to the world outside of it, and damn you can get all sorts of injuries in those things.”

“Any examples, if you don’t mind sharing?”

“Well, Silver’s blindness is a result of getting trapped into a virtual reality,” Tails revealed. “And Ava has this, well, I’m not really sure what to call it honestly, it’s some alteration in her brain that only gets fixed in the presence of the Phantom Ruby or its prototypes. She gets very weird when she’s in that state, her fur turns green and everything. That’s why she carries that ruby around with her. You’ve seen it, right?” Sonic nodded thoughtfully. Ava did indeed wear a necklace with a ruby on it, but he never thought it served any actually functional purpose.

“Wait, Sonic, what’s this?” Tails stood up and grabbed Sonic’s right ear. “You have a tag on your ear?”

“I do?” Sonic asked. He touched his ear and felt something. Indeed, something that felt like a dog tag was attached to his ear with a ring. The piercing itself was coated in metal as well.

“It’s got a bar code on it, hold on, I’ll scan it,” Tails said, grabbing his multitool gadget from the table. He tapped a couple of commands on it’s touchscreen and pointed it at the tag. After a couple of seconds it let out a little beep and gave out some results. Tails frowned thoughtfully.

“So, what’s up with it?” Sonic asked.

“This is really odd, let me tell you. This tag stores a bunch of information about you: there’s your weight, height, estimated maximum speed, eye color...”

“And Eggman’s the one who put it on Sonic, isn’t he?” Amy speculated.

“Ooh, that son of a bitch!” Knuckles yelled out, grabbing the tag and trying to rip it out. Sonic winced in pain.

“Ow, Knux, what the heck!” he yelped, grabbing the echidna’s arm in an attempt to stop him. Amy slapped the knucklehead, causing him to let go.

“Knuckles!” she yelled, “Control yourself for goodness’ sake!” Knuckles rubbed his cheek, blushing in embarrassment.

“S-sorry, Sonic, I just, lost my cool again,” he apologized. Sonic rubbed his ear, still feeling the sting.

“It’s cool, just, you know, don’t do that again, okay?” he grunted. Tails coughed awkwardly.

“I could try pliers if you want me to?” he suggested.

“Yeah, go for it,” Sonic agreed. The fox flew over to the balcony over the couch, found a toolbox and rummaged through it. He floated back down with a pair of pliers.

“Okay, stay still for a moment,” Tails stressed, placing the pliers gently against the ring. He started squeezing them, but the ring refused to give in. The material was stronger than he had anticipated.

“Uh, Knuckles, mind giving this a shot?” Tails asked, and the echidna nodded. He carefully took the pliers to his hands, and begun to squeeze them.

“Urgh, what the hell?” he said with a surprise. The ring stayed intact despite Knuckles’ impressive strength pressing it through the pliers. The echidna tried to squeeze even harder. His efforts were in vain, however, and the pliers ended up snapping in half in his grip. Sonic touched his ear decoration again, and Tails’ jaw dropped.

“Those were one of my strongest pliers?”

“Oops, uh, I’m really sorry,” Knuckles awkwardly apologized, and handed Tails the remains of the pliers. The fox stared at them thoughtfully.

“Right, Eggman obviously doesn’t want that tag removed,” he remarked. Sonic let out a chuckle.

“But how are we suppose to remove it then? We can’t rip it out, we don’t really have anyone with the medical knowledge to cut it out, we can’t clip it out with pliers either,” the fox continued.

“We could just get Eggman to do it?” Amy suggested. The boys looked at her like she had lost her mind. Amy sighed.

“Well not now, obviously, but he was the one who put it on Sonic, right? He must know how to take it off too. I don’t know, maybe there’ll be a day when he’s in a pickle and we can get him to do us a favor, right? It’s not that impossible of a concept, especially now that we have Sonic,” she explained. Tails slowly nodded.

“Well, yeah, I guess that’s a possibility on some level. I’m not sure how to get it to work, though.”

“It’s insane,” Knuckles noted. “There’s no way to get Eggman to work for us like that.”

“Nothing’s impossible though,” Sonic argued. “After all, you thought I was gone, but here I am, alive and well and back with you all.” Amy smiled.

“Besides, we can worry about this later. As long as Sonic’s with us Eggman can’t access the info on the tag anyway.”

“He might have copies,” Tails reminded. Knuckles frowned.

“Why would he have that tag, then? It wouldn’t make sense, would it now?” Sonic shrugged.

“Who knows, Eggman is one quirky dude if I know him at all,” he said with a grin. “You know, I should ask him about it the next time we meet. And invite him over for some hot chocolate while I’m at it.”

“He better bring his own, I’m sure as shit not making him any,” Amy laughed, and the others joined in. Team Sonic was back together, perhaps not better than ever, but certainly ready to cheer each other up. Sonic smiled. Perhaps things wouldn’t be going so bad after all.


	3. The Ultimate Mercenary

“What do you MEAN he’s not in any of our radars?!”

Sonic was woken up by the yelling in the control room. He had fallen asleep on the couch after talking with Tails, Knuckles and Amy until the late hours of the night. His friends had not had the heart to move him to another room as they didn’t want to risk waking him up. That clearly didn’t seem to be the case right now, however. The hedgehog rubbed his eyes and peeled himself off the cushions.

“I mean that I cannot locate him right now, he’s hiding himself again,” Amy replied to Knuckles with clear annoyance in her voice. She, Knuckles and Ava were the only people in the room at that moment. Knuckles circled around the room, pulling his quills that were already covered in bandages from previous, similar occasions.

“Uuurgh that, that pesky little COCKSUCKER!” he blurted out in his anger, and smashed his fist into a monitor. Ava flinched.

“Knuckles!” Amy yelled. Ava sharply inhaled through her teeth.

“Tails is not going to like that,” she remarked. Knuckles pulled out his fist with an aggressive yell.

“WHY is he like this!? I am fucking DONE with his shit! I am DONE!” the echidna kept on raging and punching the monitor into even smaller pieces. Sonic flinched with every hit. He had never seen Knuckles this upset. After a minute of abusing the poor monitor Knuckles ran out of steam, and let his fist rest in his victim as he caught his breath. Ava placed her hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll find him again, captain,” she said. Knuckles took a deep breath.

“God I wish,” he sighed.

“I can go looking for him again, after all I did kind of leave that mission undone yesterday.”

“Are you sure? You would need some kind of backup for that though, wouldn’t you? Especially since we don’t know where that bastard is.”

“I can be her backup,” Sonic proposed. Everyone turned to look at him.

“What? No, no, you’re staying here!” Knuckles immediately protested. Sonic let out a sigh.

“Well good morning to you too,” he muttered under his breath. Aloud he said: “Why? I mean sure I have been missing or whatever but I can take care of myself! There’s no way anyone would take me down!”

“...Infinite,” Amy coughed. Sonic put back his ears.

“...Fair enough, fair enough, but I know what his deal is now, he’s not going to fool me again.”

“He’s fucked with all of us, Sonic, and we have been aware of his abilities for a long time,” Knuckles said. “You’ve only met him once, you’re not familiar with his style of fighting or the full extend of his powers.”

“I mean, I’m familiar with all of that,” Ava interrupted. “If he’s coming with me he should be alright, right?” Knuckles looked at her with worry in his eye.

“Ava, you need capable backup.”

“Are you saying Sonic isn’t capable?”

“Well, not right now, he doesn’t know anything about Infinite and-”

“Isn’t now the perfect opportunity for him to learn something about our little jackal?” Ava smiled. Sonic looked at her and grinned. The dog had been kind of annoyed with him yesterday, but seemed to have taken a liking to the hedgehog nonetheless. Knuckles frowned. Amy looked worried as well.

“Ava, listen,” she began. “we know you mean well. It’s just that... we just got Sonic back. We don’t want to lose him again.” Ava’s smile died, and she was back to her more serious self.

“...yes, of course, I should’ve thought about that,” she muttered. Sonic hopped up from the couch and walked to his friends.

“Guys, guys, I know that you all care about me, I really do, but isn’t Ava kind of right here? Shouldn’t I actually learn something about Infinite too?” he asked. “What if one day I have to face him and I know nothing about what he does to his opponents? Wouldn’t that ensure that I’ll, well...” Sonic’s voice died out. He let out an awkward laugh.

“You know,” the hedgehog said quietly. Amy shifted in her chair. Knuckles swallowed.

“...you, you bring up a valid point,” the echidna finally said. He was quiet for a moment.

“At the end of the day I don’t really have the power to stop you from going with Ava. But I... I’m worried about you, Sonic. We all are.” Knuckles went quiet again. Amy broke the silence.

“We don’t want anything happening to you, Sonic,” she said quietly. Both her and Knuckles looked at Sonic. The hedgehog was in deep thought. Of course he wasn’t going to disappear like that again, but he didn’t want to worry his friends either. Ava coughed.

“I can always go alone, it’s no problem,” she assured. Knuckles looked at Ava, then shifted his eyes on her ruby.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said with a sad smile. Ava sighed quietly.

“Espio is out and Silver has to take it easy after his last mission,” she reminded the echidna. “and I still come across empty cans of whipped cream from the last time you left this place in Vector’s hands.”

“Oh don’t remind me,” Knuckles grunted. Sonic squinted his eyes and blinked in confusion.

“Whipped cream cans?” he asked, but had his question ignored as Ava continued talking.

“Like it or not, if you want someone to come with me, it has to be Sonic,” she said. “The other recruits don’t have the skills or experience needed for facing Infinite one on one if it comes down to that.” Knuckles looked at the dog curiously. Amy sighed anxiously.

“Only if Sonic is okay with it,” she said, revealing her take on the situation. Knuckles quickly turned to look at her, as if he was offended for her opinion. Amy looked back at him and shook her head.

“You yourself said you don’t have the power to stop him if he was to go with her,” she said, shifting her eyes at the floor. “He’s not a kid, Knuckles.” Knuckles opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it. He looked at Sonic from the corner of his eye. The hedgehog looked back, waiting for his friend to say something.

“...You better come back in one piece,” Knuckles muttered. Sonic smiled.

“I will.”

***

About an hour later Sonic and Ava were traversing the alleyways of Red Bay City, the very same city the Eggman laboratory Sonic was held in was close to. Sonic hadn’t noticed it yesterday as he and Ava were busy running away from Eggman’s robots, but the city was basically in ruins. Although most buildings seemed to be in tact several had still collapsed, any parks or greenery that may have existed at some point were completely desolate, and no one seemed to inhabit the place anymore as the entire city had so far been dead silent. Apart from rarely hearing a crow or another bird the only sounds Sonic could place were his and Ava’s footsteps on the cold, hard concrete. It all was a tad more intense than Sonic had anticipated.

“Does no one live here?” he asked, breaking the silence. Ava looked at the hedgehog over her shoulder.

“It’s very unlikely,” she answered. “This was one of the first cities that were struck by Infinite and Eggman. The later ones suffered way less damage and some of them did get, well, somewhat questionable improvements as time went on. But the early ones? No, they were left like this.”

“So most people moved to better cities then?” Ava flashed a curious smile.

“I’d love to think so, I really would, pal,” she sighed. Sonic swallowed. Things clearly had not gone well the past few years.

They arrived to an avenue littered with broken down cars and large chunks of concrete. Almost all buildings had lost the wall facing the avenue, and the road was torn up from various spots. Sonic looked at the devastation. Those had been people’s homes, their lives, and they were reduced to rubble. He felt so very overwhelmed, he almost wanted to cry.

“It is terrible,” Ava said, breaking Sonic out of his thoughts. “But there’s nothing we can do about it, not right now.”

“I feel like it’s my fault,” Sonic frowned and looked at the ground. “If I hadn’t been gone for so long this could’ve been prevented, right?” Ava side-eyed him, but said nothing.

“We need to keep moving,” she avoided the question. “Infinite could be right behind us for all we know.” They started walking along the road towards the central city. Sonic was back into his thoughts. His friends had to endure all this when he was gone, and he had had no idea he had even been gone. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. What gave Infinite the right to go around destroying the world? It had to have been Infinite, Eggman would’ve never sunken that low. Sure he wanted to conquer the world (something he obviously managed to do) but it wasn’t his style to destroy places and just leave them like that. No, he would’ve built a large metropolis on these ruins, or a factory, or-

“Watch your step,” Ava broke his thoughts again. Sonic stopped and quickly looked at the ground. A rotting arm laid in front of him. Sonic let out a yelp and jumped backwards.

“I-i-is that an arm?” he stuttered. Ava stopped and looked at him.

“Yes?” she answered. “That happens.” Sonic blinked and looked at the dog in shock.

“Why- How are you so calm about this?” he shouted out. “That’s, that’s a dead body! Or from one, anyway!”

“...Sonic, we live in a war,” she responded calmly, with confusion in her voice. “People die in wars. Soldiers, civilians, you name it.” Sonic swallowed nervously, trying to keep himself together. He began to understand that he had severely underestimated the seriousness of, well, everything. He was suddenly far more nervous then before. Ava observed his body language.

“If you want to go back-” she began, but Sonic cut her off.

“N-no, you need backup.”

“Sonic, it’s fine, you don’t-”

“I’m fine,” Sonic said, and walked past Ava. “Let’s keep going.” Ava looked after him for a moment before jogging up to him. She cleared her throat.

“Er, I don’t think there’ll be a lot of bodies up ahead,” she said. “So uh, if you were worried-”

“It’s fine,” Sonic said quickly. Ava bit her lower lip. The two walked ahead in silence, passing more buildings in various states of destruction, cars and other junk that had been left there. A few clouds slid in front of the sun as if to add to the atmosphere. The crows and birds grew quieter, and the deafening silence rose once more.

After ten or so minutes of walking Sonic and Ava arrived to what used to be a nice plaza. Some burnt up tree trunks surrounded the place, some benched were broken apart, and just like elsewhere some chunks of concrete were littering the area. Ava stopped and looked around.

“What is it?” Sonic asked, saying something the first time since encountering the arm. He caught Ava off guard, and she jumped a bit.

“Oh, uh, I was just looking to see if Infinite had set up a virtual reality here.

“How do you see a virtual reality?”

“There are these, well, little red cubes usually. They’re not the most eloquent way of concealing it, but that’s just better for us. If you touch them you get sent into a virtual reality.”

“Kind of like mines huh?” Sonic remarked.

“Sort of, yeah,” Ava answered. She took her wispon and launched a whip of electricity across the plaza. It didn’t come in contact with anything. Sonic looked at Ava in confusion, and the dog noticed.

“Just checking if he had hidden any of them,” she explained. “If he can hide himself from our radars he surely can hide his little cubes as well.” Sonic nodded and looked around. The clouds were still shielding the sun, casting a shadow over the city. In the horizon he saw the edge of the city being cradled by the ocean. The sight would’ve been beautiful had it not been for the countless of collapsed and destroyed buildings that riddled it. Sonic had never been in Red Bay City prior to today, but he wanted to fix it. He wanted it to be a home for people again, a place where he and his friends could visit someday. Sonic wanted to save the city - no, he wanted to save the world. He wouldn’t allow Infinite and Eggman to tear it apart a moment longer. His train of thought came to a halt however as he felt something zoom past his head. Sonic jumped and looked at the object that had fallen on the ground in front of him. What seemed to be a red cube kept pulsating and gave off and odd, uncomfortable glow.

“Ava?” he whispered. The dog turned around, saw the cube and immediately dashed to Sonic, grabbing his arm.

“Stay back,” she whispered sharply. “Stay the fuck back.” An ominous chuckle filled the plaza. Sonic and Ava stood back to back and tried to locate the source of the voice.

“How futile of you,” it mocked. “As if shielding him will do you or him any good.” Sonic felt Ava’s arm stiffen as she clenched her fist around her wispon.

“Show yourself,” she beckoned with a stern, calm voice. “Unless you want to fight like a coward.” Sonic swallowed. This had to be Infinite. And he didn’t know if he was ready to face the jackal. The chuckling turned into laughter due to Ava’s words.

“Very well,” it hissed. In a flash of light Infinite appeared in mid-air. Sonic’s eyes widened. It really was him, the same guy who had taken him down way back when. He clenched his fist. Infinite adjusted his mask and folded his arms.

“I was very surprised to see that you managed to escape, Sonic,” he spoke. “Though you didn’t do it alone, did you now?” A smile briefly visited Sonic’s lips.

“Unlike you I have friends,” the hedgehog mocked. The jackal scoffed.

“Pathetic,” he dismissed. “Your friends are weak. Disgustingly weak. I can’t even bear to bother with them these days. I’ve done everything interesting with them already.” Sonic swallowed.

“But you,” Infinite continued. “I never got to do much with you, did I now? You couldn’t even last a full minute if I recall correctly.”

“It wasn’t a very fair fight, was it?” Sonic grinned sarcastically. “Four of your illusions against one hedgehog? Get real.” Infinite’s eye glimmered.

“As you wish.” With manic laughter Infinite dashed against Sonic, sinking his cube-filled palm into Sonic’s chest. Sonic smacked his head into the pavement, a sensation he was all too familiar with. His head was bounding, but he pulled himself off the ground and looked around. Ava was gone, and the world was tinted red.

“What in the...” he whispered.

“Welcome to my reality,” Infinite chuckled from behind Sonic. The hedgehog swiftly turned around to face his opponent.

“Not to be a party pooper but your reality kinda sucks,” Sonic grinned. Infinite responded in no way whatsoever. Instead he materialized cubes in his hand, and launched them at Sonic. The hedgehog reacted fast, rolling past the first few and running through the rest. Sonic jumped and attempted to attack Infinite. The jackal snapped his fingers, teleporting behind Sonic and instantly slamming him to the ground. Sonic grunted. This was not happening again. He jumped up despite his aches and begun dashing around the plaza. Infinite followed him at an equal speed.

“You cannot outrun me,” he said as he materialized more cubes around himself. Sonic exhaled and simply grinned. He made swift maneuvers around some junk on the ground and ran right towards a large chunk of concrete. Before Infinite could make a snarky remark about Sonic’s sense of direction the hedgehog jumped up to the chunk and launched himself at the jackal, knocking him to the ground.

“Doesn’t make us quite even but it’ll do for now,” Sonic smiled. But his victory was short lived. Infinite immediately got up and lunged at Sonic, knocking him to the ground by his throat. Sonic let out a violent cough and grabbed Infinite by the arms, trying to push him off. But the jackal was stronger, holding on despite Sonic’s struggles. He began to chuckle.

“Weak,” he whispered softly. “You’re weak, just like all of them.” Sonic coughed and gasped for air. Infinite’s grip was burning his throat.

“You don’t deserve to live,” Infinite hissed, and began tightening his grip. Sonic wheezed, and tried to kick his enemy in the stomach. Infinite simply slammed his foot onto Sonic’s leg, making him whimper in pain. Tears began welling up in Sonic’s eyes. He had promised everyone he’d come back. He didn’t want to cause them any more pain. It couldn’t end like this, there was no way.

“Say goodbye, Sonic,” Infinite taunted.

“Get the fuck away from him.” A voice intervened, and before Infinite could turn around to see who it was, electricity wrapped up around him and pulled him away from Sonic. Free from Infinite’s grip, Sonic coughed and gasped for air. Ava. He had no idea how she had done it, but Ava saved his life. He looked around, trying to locate the jackal and Ava. The dog stood a few feet away, holding Infinite in front of her. The latter was still wrapped up in electricity from Ava’s wispon.

“The prototype,” Infinite chuckled, his voice filled with pain. “Of course, I should’ve known. You can break my realities.” Ava was breathing heavily, and she kept her eyes on Infinite.

“You’re the only one who’s any fun around here anymore, aren’t you,” Infinite laughed.

“Don’t you dare try anything,” Ava said, stern and calm like before. Infinite went quiet for a moment. The only sound in the plaza was the crackling of electricity. Sonic coughed as quietly as he could and started getting up. Infinite finally let out a chuckle.

“You’re being a bit too serious here, my dear,” he said, his voice sounding like it smiled. “How about we loosen up a little?” Before Ava had a chance to react Infinite’s red, glowing hand grabbed Ava’s prototype ruby and crushed it into pieces. Ava’s eye’s widened, and her grip on Infinite weakened enough for the jackal to break free. Infinite was back floating in mid-air, laughing. Oh, was he laughing. Ava’s hands began to shake, and she looked at Sonic with terror in her eyes. Sonic inhaled sharply. Something was wrong.

“You have to take me back to the HQ,” Ava uttered. “You have to take me back right now, before I, before...” Ava’s voice broke, and it only seemed to amuse Infinite.

“What’s wrong?” he mocked. “A bit nervous now that you don’t have your little gem, huh?” Sonic looked at Infinite. The hedgehog didn’t know exactly what was going on with Ava, but that ruby prototype was important to her, and if she lost her cool something was seriously wrong. Sonic opened his mouth to say something, but decided that now wasn’t the time to fool around with this freak. He grabbed Ava in his arms and began dashing out the plaza, Infinite’s manic laughter echoing behind his steps. The jackal rose a bit higher in the air, attempting to catch a look at the little pests running from him. They were getting rather far away, but he was able to spot Ava’s fur, which was beginning to take a shade of green. Infinite smiled. She would be out of business for a while now. His pleasure was interrupted by an aggressively ringing phone. Eggman was calling. Infinite picked it up.

“What?” he asked, and an angered voice responded.

“Exactly WHY are you loitering around in Red Bay?! We have things to do!”

“Relax, I was just having fun with that pesky resistance and Sonic.” Infinite could almost hear how Eggman’s eyes widened in anger and surprise.

“What did you say,” he demanded quietly. Infinite remained quiet.

“What did you SAY!?” Eggman yelled. Infinite gave out a chuckle.

“I was fucking around with Sonic,” he finally said.

“Why did you let him escape?! I wasn’t done with my research!”

“It’s never been my duty to look after your useless past time projects,” the jackal scoffed. “You should be yelling at your worthless robots, not me.”

“You could’ve at least captured him again! What are you, useless?! You get back over here right-” Infinite hung up before Eggman had a chance to finish his sentence. He sighed in annoyance. What an absolute joke of a genius.

“He wouldn’t have gotten half this far if I didn’t hold his hand,” Infinite scoffed. He snapped his fingers and teleported elsewhere. Red Bay City fell back into it’s eternal silence, only broken by the occasional birds and perhaps the receding footsteps of a hedgehog running far away to help his friend.


	4. Want to Be Well

Tails had had a productive day. Although fixing yet another monitor threw off his plans a little he had managed to tinker with some of his wispon prototypes. He had only managed to finish the burst and lightning wispons so far, but only the lightning wispon had seen any use as he had given it to Ava. Most resistance members preferred to use guns in combat, as reloading bullets was far more reliable than coming across wisp energy these days. That didn’t stop Tails from creating more, though. He had never been a fan of firearms, and thus the fox found the alien energy source a nice alternative. Tails finished screwing in the last screw, and picked up the weapon he had finally managed to finish. The drill wispon, a force capable of drilling through various materials. Tails smiled.

“If only someone actually wanted to give this a shot,” he sighed. “Ava’s too fond of that lightning wispon and everyone else likes guns better...” He walked over to a shelf behind him and placed the drill wispon next to its brother, the burst wispon. Tails glanced over to a box on the floor. Four other prototypes sat there silently, waiting for their turns. Tails made a mental note to work on the hover wispon next, and walked back to his workbench. He picked up a notebook detailing any requests and needs the resistance members had for him, and flipped through the pages. No one seemed to need any new prosthetics, all the important monitors were in tact, the break room’s TV was still busted but all the channels were those of the Eggman empire anyway, no radios had broken down during the past week. Tails smiled once more. His week had only gotten better and better. If nothing urgent and time-consuming came up again he could possibly finish another one of his prototypes tomorrow.

“Tails!” A yell broke Tails’s train of thought with the sound of someone kicking open the door to his work room. The fox turned around in an instant. Sonic stood now across the workbench, catching his breath and holding a twitchy green dog. A green dog? Oh dear.

“Sonic?” Tails stuttered, still confused by the situation and trying to gather his thoughts. “Is that... Ava?” Sonic took a deep breath.

“Okay okay so we went to Red Bay and we walked to the park and then Infinite just was there and he almost got me (sorry about that I didn’t mean to) but like Ava stepped in and she saved me but then Infinite like broke her ruby and she got really scared for some reason and she wanted to get out of there so I just picked her up and ran but then she got worse and she’s all green and breathing funny and I don’t know what to do you gotta help her Tails!” Sonic explained frantically, barely stopping his flow of words to catch a breath. Tails blinked a couple of times before the situation sunk in.

“Oh,” he muttered. “Oh no, no, fuck this, no...” Tails sighed deeply, turned around and crouched next to a pile of cardboard boxes. He started going through them.

“Put her on the bench and keep her calm, I’ll see if I have any replacements,” Tails advised Sonic. The hedgehog did as told, carefully placing Ava down on a bench on the other side of the room. She was shaking and breathing unsteadily. Sonic held her hand.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “I mean obviously not, but-”

“I’m so scared,” Ava interrupted quickly. “And angry, I am so angry. I want to... I want to break something.”

“Not in my workshop!” Tails nervously shouted. “You’re not breaking anything, especially not yourself. Hold on, please.” The fox was beginning to become frustrated. He could’ve sworn there were more prototypes than just the one he had given to Ava when she joined the resistance. Either they were misplaced or they had never existed to begin with, as Tails failed to come across any in his storage boxes. He let out a groan.

“The one time!” he shouted again. “The one time those useless prototypes could come in handy at all and we have none! None!” Ava’s other eye twitched slightly, and tears begun to well up in her eyes.

“What do you mean,” she whispered. “What do you mean?” Sonic felt the dog’s hand tighten around his. Tails took a deep breath before turning to Sonic and Ava.

“I don’t have any ruby prototypes,” he apologized. “We have to go to Eggman’s old ruby research lab in Mystic Jungle and pray Infinite hasn’t gotten rid of the rest of the prototypes.”

“I can go right now,” Sonic suggested, but Tails raised his hand.

“No! It’s dangerous at night, you won’t be able to see Eggman’s robots or Infinite if they approach you,” the fox explained. “Besides, going alone is a bad idea for you, anyway. Eggman could be looking for you.” A sob escaped from Ava’s mouth.

“Does this mean...” she begun, but her voice broke out before she could finish. Tails bit his lip.

“...just one night, okay?” he carefully bargained. “Sonic can go to Mystic Jungle tomorrow and find you a new one, but just... not now. It’s late.” Ava aggressively buried her face in her hands, burrowing her fingers into her fur.

“I’m going to break myself,” she whispered. “I’m going to break myself and it’s his fault, he’s going to kill me, he’s not even here and he’s-”

“Whoa!” Sonic interrupted Ava and grabbed her arm. “You’re not going to die, it’s gonna be okay.” Sonic felt the muscles in Ava’s arm clenching.

“It doesn’t feel like it, it really doesn’t,” the dog whimpered. Sonic frowned, and looked at Tails, as if to ask if the fox could’ve helped Ava somehow. Tails shook his head. Nothing but a ruby prototype could help Ava in a state like this.

“Tomorrow, Ava,” Tails said. “You can make it through the night, you’ve done it before. You’re strong.” Ava tried raising her head to look at Tails, but her nerves were failing her, forcing her to stay in place. Tails frowned and looked at Sonic.

“I feel like the others have already gone to bed, so could you please look after her tonight? I don’t want her to hurt herself...” he asked Sonic. The hedgehog nodded. He carefully picked up Ava from the bench. The dog twitched slightly and let out a cough for seemingly no reason.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Sonic said calmly. “Let’s go to bed, okay?”

***

The clock on the wall ticked towards 4am. Sonic hadn’t managed to get much sleep so far. He and Ava had located themselves into the control room to avoid waking up the others, and had decided to sleep on the balcony over the room, as some blankets and pillows were stored up there. Ava had been restless the whole night, unable to fall asleep. Sonic had occasionally drifted off, but Ava’s sharp movements had woken him up after a short while usually. The two were now sitting in silence which was only disturbed by Ava occasionally breathing sharply. Sonic held her hand again. The clock ticked, minutes passed. Sonic began drifting off again.

“It feels so bad,” Ava said silently, her voice shaking Sonic awake.

“H-huh?”

“I hate it, feeling things. It hurts so much, so much,” Ava whimpered. Tears started gathering in her eyes again. “I am so overwhelmed, it’s so exhausting. I want to die.”

“No, no, you’re not dying,” Sonic frantically protested. “I won’t let you.” Ava begun to sob.

“He did this to me,” she cried. “He destroyed my life. I can’t live like this, I can’t live when every emotion I feel hurts me so much. I can’t function, I can’t control myself, I can’t do anything...” Ava’s voice broke out, and she burrowed her hand into her face again. Sonic grabbed her arm and pulled the dog’s hand away with all his might. Ava was stronger than she looked.

“H-hey, listen, it’s true that I don’t really understand what’s going on with you, but I know that feelings can really really suck sometimes,” Sonic began. “I’ve felt so bad sometimes, but I’ve gotten through it. Everyone does. I know I can only imagine what you’re going through right now but I promise you it’ll get better, I promise you this all can be fixed somehow. I know it can, okay?” Ava side-eyed Sonic, her eyes red from crying. Sonic lowered Ava’s arm and slowly let go. The dog leaned against the wall, breathing somewhat steadier.

“I’m so scared,” she said quietly. Sonic swallowed, but said nothing. He wanted to help Ava, he really did, but he was powerless. If he only had been more careful with Infinite, then Ava’s ruby wouldn’t have been broken. None of this would’ve happened.

Suddenly Ava pulled herself back from the wall and slammed her head into it.

“It hurts so much!” she yelled out, startling Sonic. “I want it to end! I don’t want to feel anything, I don’t want to! I want it to stop!” Ava kept ramming her head into the wall as she screamed. Immediately after recovering from the initial shock Sonic lunged over to Ava, encasing her into a tight hug and preventing her from hurting herself. Ava kept screaming and struggling, but Sonic held on with his life. After what felt like an eternity Ava started to run out of steam, and her struggles were reduced into sobs and tears. Her head was bleeding slightly. Sonic loosened his grasp carefully. He was breathing heavily.

“It’s going to be alright,” Sonic huffed. “It’s, it’s going to be alright. I promise.” The clock ticked past 4am. Sonic felt like he wouldn’t be getting much sleep that night, but that was okay. He was ready to deal with some lack of sleep if it meant that his friend would be fine.


	5. Mystic Jungle

“Good morning!” a voice greeted with the sound of the control room’s door violently opening. Sonic slowly opened his eyes, blinked a few times and raised his head. Ava was somehow still asleep next to him. Sonic rubbed his eyes and sighed. That was probably for the better.

“Oh, shit, we woke him up didn’t we?” another voice said. Sonic sat up and looked down from the balcony. Silver, Charmy and Amy were in the room, looking back up at him. Sonic smiled, his eyes clearly showcasing his exhaustion from last night.

“Nah, it’s fine guys, I’ll survive,” he laughed. “What time is it?”

“Already half past nine in the morning!” Charmy announced. “Mystic Jungle is waiting! Chop chop!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it, I’ll just uh, grab some breakfast first and I’ll be on my way, no worries,” Sonic smiled and started climbing down from the balcony.

“Don’t bother with breakfast, Vector got us some snacks we can have on the go so we can leave as soon as you’re ready!” Silver informed him. Sonic stepped down from the ladder, and raised an eyebrow as his tired brain begun processing Silver’s words.

“We?” he asked.

“No way we’d let you go alone,” Amy smiled. “Besides, if you touch a ruby, it’ll register your DNA into itself and will only activate for you. If Silver picks one up with his telekinesis though the ruby won’t register to him, so whether you wanted it or not, Silver’s coming with you.” Sonic nodded. It’s not like he would’ve really been able to find that Eggman lab all by himself anyway. He appreciated the help. Sonic looked up at the balcony.

“What about Ava? Will she be alright?” he asked.

“Charmy and I will look after her,” Amy reassured.

“What about the radio lines?”

“Tails promised to take care of them for me. We’ll be fine, Sonic, don’t worry,” Amy laughed. Sonic smiled awkwardly, and then turned to look at Silver.

“So you’re ready to go right now?” Sonic asked. Silver nodded with enthusiasm.

“Hell yeah! Let’s go find Ava some rubies!”

***

Sonic wasn’t sure what he had expected from traveling with Silver, but slowly strolling through the jungle had not been it. Silver had to manage how he used his telekinesis, and using it for both seeing and flying through the air to keep up with Sonic’s running speed would’ve been too much for the hedgehog’s body. Silver already had to wear special fabrics around his torso and limbs to prevent his psychic energy from harming his muscles and internal organs. It was definitely better for him to walk rather than fly.

The two had arrived to the woods about 15 minutes ago, and were now traversing through the jungle’s greenery. Tall, tropical trees formed a roof over them, and various smaller plants and bushes decorated the ground the walked on. Occasional trashed Eggman Industry robots brought some additional color to the scenery, but apart from that the jungle was quite untouched. Sonic had assumed that Eggman would’ve turned the whole world into metal and robots at this point, but obviously he had been mistaken. Perhaps the egghead had just not had the time or materials for something like that just yet? Or... perhaps he wasn’t as bad as Sonic had thought he was? Sonic shook his head. The thought was nice, but Eggman had turned on him more than once in the past. Why would he have changed his ways, especially during the time when Sonic hadn’t been around? Maybe the guy just appreciated nature.

“...after trying to turn an entire planet’s future into scrap metal, sure...” Sonic muttered. Silver’s ear twitched, although he kept looking ahead of himself.

“Did you say something?” he asked. Sonic snapped out of his thoughts.

“Oh, no, no, I was just... thinking out loud I guess,” he answered. Silver didn’t respond for a moment.

“Can I ask you something?” he proposed. Sonic nodded, but quickly realized that Silver probably couldn’t see it as he was directing his telekinesis ahead of himself.

“Go ahead,” Sonic said out loud.

“You’re not upset about Shadow’s behavior, are you?” Silver asked. Sonic raised his eyebrows.

“Well, uh, he did act pretty coldly yeah,” Sonic said, choosing his words carefully. “...It’s not like it didn’t hurt.” Silver was quiet again. Sonic side-eyed his friend.

“Do you know why he acted like that?” Sonic asked. Silver stopped, still appearing to look ahead of himself, although the glow of his telekinesis faded from his eyes.

“Of course I can’t give you an exact answer, I’m not Shadow” Silver begun. “But I suppose there’s something I could tell you that could maybe lighten up the situation for you, even if it’s just by a little bit.” Sonic was immediately interested.

“That would be cool,” he smiled. Silver offered Sonic his hand.

“Lead me for a bit then, I can’t see very well when I’m really trying to think back to things.”

***

Silver lead more telekinesis into his hands to get a better look at his surroundings. It was a parking lot, a large one at that. He couldn’t see the end of it, but then again his field of vision wasn’t that large to begin with. Psychic energy only goes so far. Silver spotted a few cars, most of which seemed to be missing parts anywhere from tires to license plates. Silver frowned a bit. He liked license plates, they were one of the few things that he could actually read these days.

“Silver?” Shadow’s voice called. “Come on, we don’t have time to admire the scenery.” Silver turned towards the source of the voice and hurried to catch up with Shadow and Knuckles. The three of them weren’t wandering around the parking lot for no reason, after all. An Eggman facility laid across it, and it was probably the last one the resistance hadn’t checked since Sonic’s disappearance. It had been a year and a bit since the blue hedgehog had gone missing, and everyone was rather convinced that he was dead at this point. According to Miles Infinite’s attack on Sonic had been immense, so it had always been perfectly possible that the assault was his demise. Hope lived on, of course, but even then it’s flames tended to die out sooner or later. Silver had been optimistic at first, but at this point looking for Sonic seemed like a waste of time even to him. Had it not been for Shadow’s persistence the searches would’ve been dropped months ago at the very latest. It had surprised Silver initially, but Shadow was actually a quite hopeful personality despite everything. Either that, or he had trouble accepting a likely truth.

“Almost there,” Knuckles said. “Give it two or three hundred more meters.” Silver nodded. The heads up was appreciated. Navigating open fields was always more or less unnerving for him these days. Suddenly Shadow and Knuckles stopped in their tracks. Silver squinted his eyes, although the act was useless. He couldn’t see what the other two were looking at up ahead.

“Hey, what is it? What’s going on?” Silver asked, keeping his voice down. Both of his friends swiftly dashed behind a nearby car, Shadow pulling Silver with him in the progress. Silver lost the focus of his telekinesis briefly, and with that his eyesight.

“What the hell Shadow?!” Silver whispered, leading more telekinesis into his hands while trying to get a feel of his surroundings. “What’s out there? Eggman? Infinite?” He raised his hands to look at Shadow and Knuckles after re-establishing the psychic link between his hands and his brain. Silver’s eyes widened. Shadow and Knuckles were looking into the distance behind the car, both visibly disturbed. Something wasn’t right.

“...guys, what is it? I can’t see that far,” Silver whispered, a drop of sweat rolling across his temple. Shadow opened his mouth to say something, but ended up covering it with his hand. Knuckles took a deep breath.

“...Sonic,” the echidna finally said. Silver’s jaw dropped. There was no way, was there? Silver pulled himself off the concrete and stood up next to his friends. He really tried to extend his field of vision by even the tiniest bit to see the blue hedgehog that supposedly was in the distance, but his efforts were futile.

“A-are you sure it’s Sonic?” Silver carefully asked. “I mean, it’s been over a year, would he just... casually turn up in a parking lot we just happen to be walking through?” Knuckles took another deep breath.

“Fair enough, fair enough,” he admitted. “But... that looks exactly like Sonic. Who else would it be?” Silver frowned. Perhaps it was the fact that he couldn’t see the blue hedgehog himself, but he was doubtful of Knuckles’ words. Something felt off about the situation at hand.

Suddenly Shadow dashed out of their cover and - by the sound of his footsteps - ran towards the place Sonic supposedly was at.

“Shadow!” Knuckles called out. He looked at Silver. The hedgehog nodded and the two left the cover as well and followed Shadow. Silver kept directing his telekinesis ahead of himself. Soon a familiar figure did indeed enter his vision: a figure that looked stunningly like Sonic. But something about it wasn’t right. The way it looked was... off. Silver stopped in his tracks and directed his right hand at Knuckles, who dashed past him, and his left hand at Sonic. He hadn’t imagined it, something wasn’t right about Sonic. The way the telekinesis reflected him in Silver’s brain was different from Knuckles. Silver’s eyes widened. Could it be...?

“Shadow stop!” Silver yelled out. “Don’t go any closer, please!” Shadow didn’t listen to Silver’s warning. He skated right up to Sonic. Silver took a sharp breath and started running towards the two hedgehogs. Shadow said something to Sonic and held out his hand, possibly to touch Sonic’s shoulder. Sonic turned around to look at Shadow. Silver took another sharp breath. He had gotten used to not seeing any colors at this point. What shocked him was the fact he could see a color. A deep red shone in Sonic’s eyes. Why was Silver able to see it? It didn’t make any sense, ever since Infinite used the Phantom Ruby’s powers to destroy Silver’s eyesight-

“The Phantom Ruby!” Silver gasped. “Shadow, don’t! Get out of there! It’s another ruby trick, it’s not-!”

It was over in a flash. The Sonic seemingly teleported behind Shadow, aiming to kick him in the head. Knuckles intervened. He took the blow instead of Shadow. The echidna wasn’t taken back by the pain in his right eye. He stroke back, punching the Sonic with a mighty force. The illusion shattered into hundreds of ruby red cubes that faded from existence. Silver ran up to Knuckles. He was breathing heavily, and held his hand over his bleeding eye.

“Urgh, we need to get out of here,” Knuckles grunted. “It’s a virtual reality, I, I should’ve known. This is bad, this is very bad...” Silver looked at Shadow. His face was overtaken by shock.

“...We need to go,” Shadow finally uttered out. “Knuckles, you-”

“I’ll be fine,” the echidna assured. “Let’s go.” Silver begun floating with his telekinesis and offered his hand to Shadow. Shadow grabbed it, and he and Knuckles begun dashing towards the end of the parking lot. Silver couldn’t have been able to keep up with them on foot, but he also couldn’t see very far while flying. Shadow had to pull him for now. Silver pointed his hands behind himself. His eyes widened. More Sonics were appearing all around them.

“There’s more!” Silver yelled out. The Sonics begun running towards the trio. Shadow skated closer to Knuckles and grabbed his hand too, attempting to to outspeed the illusions. Silver kept looking behind them. A sea of glowing, red eyes haunted them, and they were gaining up. Fast. Silver took his free hand and formed a psychic wall between the illusions and the group, hoping to hold the Sonics back. They rammed into the wall, crawling on top of each other in an attempt to get across. Their red eyes burned in Silver’s brain, shining brighter than any light he had ever seen. Silver closed his eyes in pain, though it did nothing to stop the light. He clenched his fist, charging it with psychic energy.

“Go to HELL!” he screamed out, striking the barrier with his hand and blowing away the illusions and the barrier with a shock wave of telekinesis. Silver lost his sight immediately afterwards and fell down to the ground, the shock wave had consumed all of his psychic energy he had on hand. Shadow and Knuckles stopped immediately, and Knuckles went to pick up Silver.

“That wasn’t necessary!” the echidna cried out. Silver grunted.

“They would’ve gotten through otherwise!” he retaliated, but there was no time to argue. More illusions were spawning constantly, Silver could hear them. He still couldn’t see, and building another link after a blow of that magnitude would take some time. Knuckles and Shadow grabbed Silver’s hands.

“Just run,” Shadow instructed. The three begun running again, Silver doing his best to not trip. He could hear the illusions running towards them from several directions, but not from ahead. They had to be approaching the edge of the virtual reality where illusions weren’t able to spawn as the ruby energy was weaker there. They were so close. They had to make it.

Suddenly Silver heard something unusual.

The footsteps closest to them vanished.

In a second he found himself on the concrete with immense pain in his left eye. He felt it with his hand. A wound cut across his eyelid. His fingertips were wet. He was bleeding. Silver heard Knuckles punch yet another illusion, and Shadow rushing to Silver side to check up on him.

“Are you alright?” Shadow frantically inquired. Silver couldn’t let a word out of his mouth before he felt something zoom past him and hit Shadow. The ultimate lifeform let out a shout. Silver raised up his hands. The telekinesis link wasn’t back to normal just yet and his field of vision was small, but he could see Shadow shoving a chaos spear into an illusion, shattering it. Knuckles, not that far from the two, was punching away as many Sonics as he could. Silver breathed heavily. It was hopeless. They were going to die here. Silver looked back at Shadow. He, too had a wound on his left eye now. But that wasn’t what caught Silver’s attention. Shadow was fiddling with one of his limiters.

“Shadow, what are you-” Silver begun, but before he could finish Shadow grabbed him by his arm. Shadow did the same to Knuckles, who was just as surprised.

“Hey, what the-!”

“Chaos control!” Shadow yelled out, and begun glowing. Silver’s eyes widened. Before he even had time to properly process the situation at hand Shadow had already teleported them outside the virtual reality, leaving behind the illusions of their old friend.

***

Shadow, kneeling on the ground, was coughing up blood as he desperately tried to put his limiter back on. Knuckles stepped in and assisted the hedgehog. Silver frowned. Shadow had burned up his own chaos energy to perform chaos control without an emerald. He had saved Silver and Knuckles, and teleported them to a cliff in a nearby forest. Silver couldn’t even fathom how much energy that must’ve taken, and that was by only removing one of Shadow’s limiters. Silver tore off some of the fabric around his legs and handed it to Knuckles, who accepted the gift with mild confusion.

“For the eye,” Silver said. Knuckles nodded, and began tying the strand of fabric around his head. The hit had been devastating. Knuckles wouldn’t be seeing with his right eye anymore. Shadow took a few deep breaths and wiped away some of the blood around his mouth.

“You okay?” Silver asked him. Shadow sighed.

“I’ll recover,” he muttered. Shadow closed his eyes. Silver could tell he was upset. Suddenly Shadow slammed his fist to the ground and let out a yell, catching Knuckles and Silver off guard enough for Silver to lose the focus of his telekinesis again.

“That son of a bitch!” Shadow roared. “Is nothing enough for him?! Our lives are already hell, we don’t need this shit on top of everything else! He already has the world, he’s already won! What the FUCK does he think he’s accomplishing by playing with our feelings?!” Silver and Knuckles blinked. They had never seen Shadow this angry, he was usually the definition of calm and collected. Shadow proceeded to have another coughing fit, and his friends rushed to his side.

“Shads, chill,” Knuckles urged. “I know that what just happened was god awful, and I know you got played there, but at least we made it out alive thanks to you, that’s what’s important right now.” Silver swallowed.

“Also they haven’t won yet,” Silver protested. “They may have the upper hand for now, but we have the resistance. We will take them down eventually, I know we will.” Shadow steadied his breath again, taking a couple of deep breaths.

“This wouldn’t have happened if Sonic was here,” he whispered.

“I know,” Knuckles said, and took Shadow’s hand into his. Silver sat next to the two, frowning.

“We can do this without him, too. We’re strong,” he said, attempting to lift the mood. Shadow stared off the cliff towards the sunrise.

“I just miss him, so very much.”

***

“Oh, I guess we’re here already,” Silver said. Sonic was in deep thought and still holding Silver’s hand despite the fact the other hedgehog had clearly begun using his telekinesis for seeing again. Silver turned to Sonic, waving his hand in front of Sonic’s face.

“Hey, you here?” Silver asked, snapping Sonic out of his thoughts.

“Oh, huh, yeah, I’m here,” Sonic laughed. Silver looked at him curiously.

“Was the story, uh, too much for you? I didn’t really consider that, actually, sorry,” he apologized. Sonic shook his head.

“No, it’s fine, I just... I don’t think I really realized that you guys care that much about me,” Sonic explained. “Like you’ve gone through so much for my sake, I... I don’t know how to feel about it.” A faint smile passed on Silver’s mouth.

“It’s alright,” he assured. Sonic looked down at the ground.

“I just...” he began. “I just feel bad for Shadow. I understand why he’s angry now, and, well, if I hadn’t gotten captured like that-”

“Oh stop it,” Silver interrupted Sonic. “What’s happened has happened, and there’s nothing we can do about it now. A bit ironic coming from me, I know, but I think the important thing right now is that you’re back and you’re alive. Don’t feel bad about it, I’m sure that deep down even Shadow is glad to see you again.” Sonic looked at Silver, his eyes shining like emeralds.

“You think so?”

“Shadow has a hard time dealing with emotions sometimes. It can get kind of overwhelming for him, at least that’s what I think,” Silver continued. “I feel like you should try and talk to him when he comes back from Green Hill. You know, to clear some air and whatnot.”

“You think that’s alright? I mean Shads did seem pretty upset when I came back.” Sonic frowned, causing Silver to shrug.

“It’s worth a shot. Shadow is good at holding grudges but he’s had time to calm down and talk to Rouge and Omega. If anyone can get him back to his senses it’s those two.” Silver turned to look at the facility he and Sonic were standing in front of. Sonic finally took a proper look at it. The design was depressive, it was almost as if someone had placed a hollow block of concrete in the middle of the jungle. The lab was an old one, build way before the Eggman Empire’s rise by the looks of it and probably not even by Eggman himself. Silver walked up to the two metal doors locking the place, grabbed them with his telekinesis, and ripped them off of their hinges. He slammed the doors to the ground next to the building, and looked at the hallway and ahead of him. Sonic blinked a few times. The power of Silver’s telekinesis always caught him off guard. Silver gestured Sonic to follow him, and the two stepped inside the building.

The place was overtaken by nature. Vines, bushes and even trees were tearing their way through the concrete walls. Most of the lights in the building were trashed, although some fluorescent lamps were stuttering with a bit of light the apparently still functioning electricity was desperately trying to zap into them. A few of Eggman’s robots laid in the hallways, all broken down. Some cockroaches and other bugs zipped across the floor occasionally, and sometimes birds flew in and out of the windows. The building had definitely seen better days. Sonic peeked into the various rooms that decorated the hallways in the hopes of spotting a ruby prototype. Silver assisted him in opening locked doors and looking around in the darker rooms, but for the most part the hedgehog tried to conserve his energy and to not overwork his muscles with too much telekinesis. The hedgehogs scoured the hallways they passed through carefully, making sure to check every room. Sonic asked why they didn’t know the exact location of the rubies in the building, Silver explained that it was because Ava was the only one who had ever been inside the building, and she was the one who originally found the prototypes. No one else from the resistance had any need to for the prototypes, so no one else had ever looked for them. Aside from Ava Sonic and Silver were the first ones to actually explore the building.

Eventually Sonic and Silver arrived to a pair of locked metal doors at the end of one hallway. Sonic spindashed into them, attempting to break them open, but the act was futile. The doors were stronger than they looked, and all Sonic managed to do was bend them a little.

“Let me handle this,” Silver insisted, and much like before he ripped off the doors and opened the way.

“I’m never gonna understand how your telekinesis is this strong,” Sonic marveled. Silver grinned.

“This stuff takes practice if that makes you feel any better,” he smiled. The two stepped into the room and immediately froze into place. The place was a surgery littered with ruby shards, papers and notebooks. Cords and tubes coiled the floor, an operation table stood in the middle of the room and a large capsule filled with a liquid was located at the back of the room. Sonic looked at the mess on the floor, and picked up a few papers. They were documents, going in detail about something called...

“...’Project Zero?’” Sonic read out loud. He couldn’t understand most of the information on the document he was holding, there were too many cryptic words and scientific lingo. Silver picked up a notebook from the ground. Sonic read the text on the cover. It, too, was titled ‘Project Zero.’

“Have you ever heard of this?” Sonic asked Silver. The latter shook his head.

“No, this is the first time.” Sonic opened the notebook.

“Oh,” Silver interrupted. “Do you mind reading it out loud? I don’t think it’s written in braille, and, well, I can’t see the text.”

“I thought your telekinesis let you see?”

“Well yeah, I can see the flat page of the notebook, but the text isn’t exactly three dimensional,” Silver chuckled.

“Oh, shoot, I see.”

“Yes you do, unlike me,” Silver grinned. Sonic squinted at him, but Silver simply laughed. Sonic sighed and begun reading the notebook.

“Right, let’s see (don’t you say anything)... ‘Project Zero, a diary by... Orbot?’ Okay, sure, sounds legitimate I guess.

"‘Day 1: Dr. Eggman has begun working on creating a prototype based on the ruby that fell near our desert base last month. The artificial ruby he’s trying to create should have similar properties as the original, and should be able to be mass-produced for wider use. This would revolutionize the Eggman Industry and provide us with a new, alternative and unlimited source of energy.’ Wait, he was trying to make an energy source?”

“That’s... interesting,” Silver admitted. “Keep reading?”

“Alright... ‘Day 13 (whoa this skips a lot): The jackal squad’s leader insisted on being involved in the project. The doctor agreed. The prototypes have been fragile so far. Properties are getting there. More research is needed. Durability tests need to be ran ASAP.”

“Day 18: Infinite has been put into stasis. The prototypes are beginning to be sturdier at the cost of the other properties.’ Then there’s some kind of a graph? I can’t make heads or tails out of this, I’ll uh, I’ll just move on.”

“‘Day 31: The preparations on the ultimate weapon are done. The final prototype has been successfully finished. It still requires the original in order to reach it’s maximum potential. The surgery will take place tomorrow. God help us all?’”

“What does that mean?” Silver asked.

“I don’t think it’s actually supposed to be a part of this report, it’s kind of at the margin of this page,” Sonic. He flipped through the other pages. They also had various scribbles on the margins.

“Okay uh, there’s more: ‘The jackal is too smart for tricks...’ ‘have a talk about treating him like a weapon,’ ‘prepare a backup plan in case he breaks out.’ I can’t really make out the rest.”

“Was Eggman treating Infinite like some kind of an object?” Silver frowned. “God, that’s awful.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t care who it is, people should never be treated like tools. No one exist for someone to use them for their own gain.”

“Oh, yeah, that is awful,” Sonic agreed. “I guess it could maybe explain why Infinite is... like that, maybe.”

“True. Still won’t excuse his actions though,” Silver added. Sonic nodded, and picked up a bunch of the document laying down on the floor.

“Tails probably understands more about these than we do,” he explained. “I’ll take them to him.” Silver nodded, and begun looking around the room as well. As Sonic picked up the last document from the floor Silver called out for him.

“Sonic, check this out!” he beckoned, and picked up a red object from the ground with his telekinesis. Sonic’s eyes lit up. It was a ruby prototype, and perfectly intact on top of everything.

“Oh heck yeah!” Sonic laughed. “What are we waiting for? Let’s bring it to Ava!”

***

Sonic watched as Ava held the ruby in her hand. The dog was smiling, her eyes a bit teary even. The mood in Tails’ workshop was much lighter than the previous night.

“Thank you so much,” she smiled. “I have no words, honestly.”

“Hey, anything to help you out,” Sonic laughed. “You did save my life once or twice after all, this was nothing compared to that.” Ava handed the ruby to Tails, making sure to stay in close proximity of it.

“I’ll put it on a necklace again, and this time it’ll be a lot sturdier,” Tails declared. “No way Infinite’s getting his hands on this bad boy!” Sonic exchanged a few more words with his friends before exiting the workshop and walking towards the mess hall. Charmy had informed the workshop that dinner was ready, and indeed Sonic was ready to suppress the hunger growing inside him. What he wasn’t ready for was bumping into Amy as she exited the control room in a hurry. The hedgehogs fell over on the floor, and awkwardly apologized several times for their clumsiness.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” Sonic asked, and Amy shook her head.

“No, I’m fine, this happens,” she laughed. “The amount of times I’ve tripped on Espio while he’s been standing in hallways while invisible is insane, honestly. I’m used to this.” Amy helped Sonic get up from the floor, and the two continued their journey for dinner. Sonic was quiet for a moment.

“Hey Ames,” he begun. “Has Shadow come back from Green Hill yet?”

“I think he’ll be back in a day or two,” Amy answered. Sonic nodded nervously, and she noticed.

“Listen,” Amy said and placed her hand on Sonic’s shoulder. “I know Shadow went too far a few days ago. He was just very overwhelmed, more than the rest of us I suppose.”

“Are you saying that’s why he was the only one to, well, be like that?” Sonic asked.

“Maybe. Shadow is the kind of person to bottle things up I think, and after you were, uh, gone, he kinda took on the task alongside Knuckles to keep the resistance together. I think that all just sort of... erupted when he saw you again,” Amy explained. “That’s what I think of it, anyway.” Sonic nodded, his eyes fixated on the ground. Amy turned to him and gave him a hug.

“C’mon, it’ll be fine, I just know it,” she reassured. “Let’s go have that dinner already, you’ll feel better after eating something.”


	6. How Are You Doing, My Dearest Friend?

The following day at the resistance's headquarters was fortunately a calm one: no surprising or alarming attacks from Infinite or Eggman himself were spotted. Sonic finally had time to catch up with those who he not had a chance to really talk to just yet, and everyone got a well-deserved break from dealing with the ongoing war. The only interruption they had was a call from Rouge informing the headquarters that she and the rest of Team Dark would return from Green Hill sometime the next day, probably closer to the evening.

The same certainly couldn’t be said for the Eggman HQ.

***

Eggman aggressively flung even more papers onto the floor from the desk, effectively creating a rug of documents on top of the numerous cords decorating the floor of his office. The term “office” was a bit misleading: the room was more a mixture of a laboratory and some kind of a monitoring room as several large, liquid-filled capsules were placed around the room and the back wall behind Eggman’s desk was covered in monitors. Various drawers of the rather futuristic-looking table were thrown open as Eggman went through their contents, looking for a couple of very specific documents. The doctor has just been informed that his Green Hill ruby research facility had been broken into and a few crucial documents were now missing. Reports stated that the intruder was a black, rather short creature capable of teleportation. Eggman knew only two creatures who matched that description, and ironically enough was desperately hoping that the intruder had been Shadow. The other person he had on his mind would have been far less ideal in all honesty. And if it had been who Eggman was fearing it had been he would need the information on those documents to stop them. Or at least to attempt to stop them...

His frantic searching was rewarded as he found perfectly good copies of the lost documents. Eggman sighed in relief. He had played it smart after all. He flipped through the papers. Null Space. He remembered that. Eggman had discovered it back when he was building - or perhaps constructing? - Infinite. It was a pocket dimension within their own, and had a strong connection to the Phantom Ruby. Eggman had immediately been interested in it, and proceeded to research it in case it would have proven to be useful to some capacity. However Null Space had turned out to be a deserted dimension: seemingly nothing existed in it. It had some form of an atmosphere in it as well as oxygen, but it wasn’t enough to really sustain living life forms for too long. Eggman had considered using it as some kind of a storage space, but the general structure of the dimension seemed too unstable even for something like that. The place could only be accessed with the Phantom Ruby anyway, and creating functional prototypes had proven to be more challenging than he initially thought, let alone creating a perfect copy of the original. Infinite’s ruby had gotten close, but even that one needed the real Phantom Ruby as it’s power source. It wasn’t all that reliable at the end of the day.

Eggman reached for one of the drawers to put the documents into a safe place when a red flash filled the room briefly. Eggman inhaled sharply. Infinite.

“Greetings, doctor,” the jackal said. “What’s the mess about?”

“It’s none of your business,” Eggman grunted and reached back for the drawer to shove the documents into it temporarily. Infinite was faster, and by teleporting next to the doctor the jackal grabbed his arm, preventing him from completing the action.

“Oh, I think it very much is business,” Infinite assured, and snatched the papers from Eggman’s hand. A drop of sweat rolled down the side of the doctor’s head as he frowned. This was the opposite of how he wanted things to go. He carefully watched as Infinite skimmed through the papers. The mask covered the jackal’s face, but it couldn’t cover his satisfied chuckling.

“Oh, Ivo, my dear Ivo,” Infinite softly laughed. “This is excellent. Wonderful indeed. This is exactly what I need.”

“How so?” Eggman asked, raising his eyebrow. “It’s just a pocket dimension with nothing in it.”

“Exactly. With this, we can finally destroy this world for good,” Infinite smiled. Eggman jumped up from his chair.

“What, have you lost your mind?!” he yelled out. “Why would we do that?! We’ve worked hard to fix the existing problems we had with this world and we’ve made good progress at it too! Why would we throw that all away, what is the point in that?!” Infinite turned to look at Eggman, and straightened his mask. There was a curious look in his eye, but Eggman couldn’t pinpoint it’s meaning.

“Whether you want it or not, I’m going to Metropolis tomorrow and start from there,” Infinite stated. Eggman’s eyes widened, perhaps in anger, perhaps in fear even.

“Well I forbid you!” he roared. “Metropolis is one of the most valuable cities in this empire! You can go to Red Bay if you want to cause havoc, we already agreed on that!” Infinite scoffed.

“What if I go anyway?” he challenged. Eggman was taken aback by the question. For some reason he didn’t think Infinite was being this serious about destroying the city. Then again he hadn’t had quite this kind of means to do it before...

“I-I’ll shut down your power source!” Eggman threatened. “That ruby is nothing without it!” Infinite was quiet for a moment. Eggman thought he had him, but the jackal then began chuckling in amusement.

“Oh sure, go right ahead,” Infinite taunted. “Shut it down. Let’s see how long your empire stays together without it.” Eggman was in a corner. He knew letting Infinite see the Null Space documents was a terrible idea. The thief had indeed been Shadow though, as Infinite clearly saw the documents for the first time just now. Eggman couldn’t quite believe it himself, but he desperately wished that the resistance would find a way to stop Infinite’s destructive plans this time. Eggman sharply inhaled through his teeth.

“Metropolis is one of the biggest cities in the empire, you do understand this?” he hissed. Infinite nodded.

“Oh, I am more than perfectly aware of this.”

“Then what is wrong with you?!” Eggman lashed out. “We will lose valuable resources! People will lose their homes and families and there will be riots! Are you just an idiot or do you refuse to look at the bigger picture?!”

“I don’t care about your ‘bigger picture’, Ivo,” Infinite growled. “You clearly don’t seem to understand me or my goals.”

“Oh I understand you perfectly well,” Eggman grunted. “I understand that you’re nothing but an angsty, edgy teenager who takes angst out on others!” Infinite clenched his fist, and stared directly into Eggman’s eyes.

“You can come watch the show tomorrow or just read the papers afterwards,” the jackal hissed. “Frankly I couldn’t give less of a shit about it.” Infinite snapped his fingers, and a red flash illuminated the room once again as he teleported away. Eggman collapsed back into his chair, and rubbed his face with his hands. He really hadn’t imagined it, Infinite had gotten more aggressive about this whole world-destruction thing during the past year or so. Eggman didn’t know how long he would be able to keep the jackal in place. He and Infinite had tried to fix the things they considered issues in the world, but that clearly didn’t seem to be enough for the jackal. He was obsessed with destruction. Eggman sighed and swept off some of the remaining papers from his desk.

“That pesky little hedgehog better save the day this one time now that he's free,” he muttered to himself, and pressed a button to call in Orbot and Cubot. He was in a desperate need of a cup of tea after the mess that just occurred.

***

The sun was setting in Mystic Jungle, and it’s rays painted a golden glow on the leafs covering the forest. A red flash added a bit of additional color on one of the jungle’s cliffs. Infinite landed onto the ground, and carefully removed his mask. He stared at the horizon painted with warm colors. It made him feel something, but he couldn’t figure out exactly what the feeling was. Not that it mattered anyway. Infinite turned around and walked into the forest. A few flowers bloomed on the sides of the little path he was traversing, and various kinds of birds sat on the trees out of sight, singing their songs. Infinite didn’t mind.

He arrived to a small clearing and stared at a stone placed on the edge of it, directly opposite of the path he had just walked. An infinity symbol had crudely been carved onto it. Infinite placed down his mask, and sat onto the ground. He sighed.

“Hey,” he began. “I know it’s been a while. Sorry about that. Stuff’s been going on.” He was quiet for a moment.

“I’m so sorry,” he blurted out. “I’m still so sorry about that. If I had just told that asshole to reprogram his fucking robots, and if I had beaten that shitty hedgehog faster, you guys wouldn’t...” Infinite stared at the stone monument, as if expecting an answer. The stone remained quiet. Infinite shifted to look at the ground.

“But I have good news, okay?” he said. “I’m gonna do it. You guys... You guys will have your revenge, I promise you. It’s all coming together. I’m gonna show the world what it gets for messing with us.” He smiled, even if sadness filled his eyes. Infinite sighed.

“And I swear to god, I swear I will take those two assholes down,” he whispered. “They get to burn in hell before anyone else. Even if I gotta go down with them.” Infinite stood up, and grabbed his mask from the ground.

“I’ll see you soon,” he concluded before putting on the mask. With a snap of his fingers he left Mystic Jungle behind, letting his former squad rest in peace again.


	7. Live and Learn

A knock on the control room’s door interrupted the room’s calm atmosphere. Amy’s ear turned towards the sound, but she didn’t turn her head away from the readings on the monitor she was looking at.

“Charmy, could you..?” Amy asked. “I’m kinda in the middle of something here.”

“I’m in the middle of something too!” Charmy protested, and waved the playing cards in his hand. “I’m winning here!” Sonic looked at his own cards and frowned. Sure it had been six years, but how on earth was Charmy better at poker than he was? Just how much had the bee been playing this game while Sonic had been missing?

“Okay fine, I’ll get it,” Espio sighed, slapped his cards onto the table and got up from the couch. Charmy reached out his hand to peek at Espio’s cards, but Vector intervened before cheating could ensue. Sonic looked at the pile of poker chips in front of Charmy, and then shifted to look at his own five he had left. The hedgehog felt like Charmy would go to places once the war was over and done with.

“Hey sweethearts, did you miss us?” a voice called from the door as Espio opened it. Rouge stepped in, followed by Omega, and Shadow, who situated himself near the door. Sonic raised his eyebrows. While Omega seemed mostly unchanged, save for some scratches and dirt on his body, Rouge no longer wore her chestplate, had a couple of scars on her shoulder and she had a hearing aid in her left ear. The bat also looked far more tired than the last time Sonic had seen her.

“Oh, Rouge, good to see you!” Amy greeted, still not shifting her eyes from the monitor. “Knuckles is out right now, there was some ruckus around Red Bay he had to take care of, but he’ll be back soon I think?”

“Hopefully he won’t be long, it’s not polite to make a lady wait,” Rouge chuckled. She took a brief look around the room, laid her eyes on Sonic, and looked rather surprised.

“Oh, goodness,” she marveled. “It really is true, isn’t it?”

“Affirmative. Sonic the Hedgehog is alive.” Omega said. “Overwriting previous files of Sonic the Hedgehog being deceased.” Shadow looked over to Sonic briefly, sighed quietly and exited the room. Sonic noticed his departure and frowned. Rouge turned to look at the doorway, saw that Shadow had left and turned to look at Sonic.

“Listen, hun,” she began. “Our reunion can wait for a bit. You should go talk to him.” It was Sonic’s turn to be surprised.

“Do you really think that’s alright?” he asked. “He seemed like he wanted to be left alone...” Rouge smiled encouragingly.

“Trust me, he needs it just as much as you,” she assured. “Go on, don’t keep him waiting.” Sonic nodded carefully, and walked towards the door.

“Oh, and Sonic?” Rouge called out just before the hedgehog could exit the room. Sonic turned around to look at her.

“I’ll teach you some poker once we have time for it,” she winked. Sonic smiled, and stepped into the hallway as Charmy complained that Rouge would give Sonic an unfair advantage.

***

Sonic opened the door leading outside to the roof of the building. He took a look around. The view was breathtaking. The sun was setting in the horizon made of some woods, fields and the city of Red Bay. At the edge of the roof sat Shadow, staring into the horizon. Sonic exhaled. He calmly walked next to Shadow, and sat down next to him. Shadow’s ear twitched as he heard Sonic approach, but he didn’t react in any other way. Birds chirped and clouds crawled across the sky, as the two hedgehogs sat in silence.

Sonic was the first one to break the silence.

“I’m really sorry,” he said. Shadow raised his eyebrow and turned to look at Sonic. The latter sighed.

“Yeah, I’m really really sorry for just, walking in like that when I did,” Sonic repeated. “I-I should’ve known that you guys had been through a lot when I wasn’t around, I mean I had no idea you all had gone through so much but like... I should’ve expected it I think.” Shadow blinked and stared at Sonic. The blue hedgehog noticed and and awkwardly shifted to look at the ground below them.

“I-I know you have no reason to forgive me, like I’m not trying to make you do that, but like I-”

“No, no it’s not that,” Shadow interrupted him and exhaled. “I was just... It’s me who should be apologizing here.”

“You?”

“Don’t be silly, I lashed out on you real bad. It was uncalled for, I should’ve controlled myself better than that. I said some horrible things to you, I should’ve never done that.”

“But... that’s understandable? You went through so much for my sake and then I just turn up like it’s nothing, like that’s not fair for you. Like you hurt yourself really bad when you went looking for me, too...”

“...Silver told you about that, huh?” Shadow said, a faint smile dancing on his lips for a second. “...It’s okay. I made it out alive, after all.”

“But I should’ve known-”

“No, Sonic, there was no way you could’ve known, and that’s okay. What’s happened in the past doesn’t justify what I said and did when you came back.” Shadow shook his head.

“I went too far, I definitely shouldn’t have taken my feelings out on you, or anyone else for that matter.” Sonic was quiet for a minute, looking at Shadow. He then shifted to look at the horizon.

“It’s okay,” he said. Shadow looked at him in confusion, prompting Sonic to explain himself further.

“I mean, it’s not cool to take out anger on others, that’s not what I mean. But like I understand why you reacted the way you did, and it’s in the past now. And it’s okay. I accept your apology, that’s what I mean.” Shadow blinked again, a thought passing through his mind. He then looked back into the horizon as well. Once again the hedgehogs sat in the silence, not having to say anything. That was until Shadow remembered the mission he had just concluded with the rest of Team Dark.

“Oh,” he blurted out. “The documents.”

“Documents?” Sonic asked.

“We broke into an Eggman lab at Green Hill and found some stuff there, I feel like Knuckles and Miles should take a look at those ASAP.”

“What kinda stuff?”

“It’s about Infinite, or the Phantom Ruby. Applies to both.”

“Well what are you waiting for, let’s see if Knux is back from the city!” Sonic smiled and jumped up. A smile appeared on Shadow’s lips as well as he got up, and the hedgehogs walked to the door. Shadow grabbed the handle and turned it, but before he opened the door he stopped and turned to look at his friend.

“Sonic?” he asked. Sonic looked at Shadow.

“Yeah?”

“I, too, forgive you,” Shadow smiled.


	8. The Coolest Person I Know

The door of the control room opened yet again as Sonic and Shadow walked in. Everyone in the room, apart from Amy, who was still occupied by the various readings on the monitors, turned to look at the two hedgehogs curiously. Sonic felt a bit embarrassed by the sudden attention. Rouge put down her playing cards (which were formerly Sonic’s) next to a growing pile of poker chips, and looked at the two. She was smiling.

“So?” the bat prompted. “How are we doing today?” Shadow smiled a bit.

“We’re okay,” he answered.

“Confirmed,” Omega said. “I experience a great positive ‘emotion’ in regards to you making up for your errors.” Shadow let out a chuckle, but the careful joy on his face soon returned to his more collected self.

“Has Knuckles returned yet?” he asked.

“He’s on his way,” Amy informed him. “He won’t be long.”

“Good. Can you call in Miles? I need him to look at something.”

“Okay, give me a minute.” Amy pressed a couple of buttons on the monitor before pressing a buzzer.

“He’ll be here in a bit,” Amy assured. Shadow nodded and sat down on the couch next to Vector. Sonic grabbed a pillow from the floor, moved it next to the coffee table everyone was playing on and took a seat. He observed the game for a little while, paying attention to Rouge’s plays and ignoring Charmy’s complaints about cheating. Sonic’s eyes wandered off to Shadow, and he noticed the holster on the hedgehog’s waist.

“...you carry a gun?” Sonic asked. Shadow raised his eyebrows, and looked at the holster.

“...well, sort of, I guess,” Shadow admitted.

“Wait, seriously? You, out of all people?” Sonic blurted out in complete confusion. “I thought that because of... because of your sister, you’d never-”

“Listen,” Shadow interrupted. “I don’t carry it loaded. Never. I will not shoot a bullet in my life again, even if it ends up being my demise at the end.” Shadow sighed. The game of poker had come to a halt, as everyone felt a bit too awkward to continue under the current topic of conversation.

“The only reason I have this is because people are not aware of what I’m capable of. They don’t know about the sheer amount of chaos energy I have at my disposal at all times, most of them anyway. And me, Rouge and Omega come across all kinds of people on our missions. I learned quickly that they won’t believe my warnings about my powers, and I want to avoid violence honestly. So I started bringing a gun with me, not to shoot, but to threaten and avoid conflict with. It works better than my threats, which I guess isn’t very surprising.” Sonic blinked, and turned to look at Rouge. She nodded.

“He’s never shot a gun since that whole Black Arms ordeal,” Rouge confirmed. “And if I know him at all, hun, I can guarantee he’s a man of his word.”

“I am the one who takes care of shooting,” Omega joined in. “Shadow does not have to bother doing things he is not comfortable with.”

“Thanks,” Shadow gave Omega a faint smile.

“No problem. I experience a positive ‘feeling’ while exterminating enemies.”

“It’s called joy, hun,” Rouge chuckled.

“I see. Updating dictionary, adding in: ‘joy.’ Definition: the ‘feeling’ experienced while eradicating enemies. See also: ‘happiness.’”

“That’s my boy,” Rouge smiled. Just as she was about to continue the game, and by the looks of things seal herself an overwhelming victory, the control room’s door swung open and Tails stepped inside.

“Okay,” the fox sighed. “Is this actually something important this time, or did someone accidentally lean on that buzzer again?”

“Well good to see you too, Miles,” Shadow greeted him with sarcasm. Tails turned to look at the black hedgehog and raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, shit, sorry, I just- ugh, you know how it is,” Tails stumbled around his words, embarrassed by his rude entry. Sonic looked at his brother. The black rings around Tails’ eyes were looking worse than ever. At least, as bad as Sonic had ever seen them, which perhaps wasn’t saying a lot. Sonic wondered if Tails had pulled another all-nighter to finish some of his inventions as the fox had used to do that sometimes six years ago.

“It’s fine,” Shadow assured. “But yes, this is actually something important. We found documents at Green Hill, you might wanna take a look at them.”

“Well that is important, yeah,” Tails agreed. Shadow and Rouge got up and walked to the table on the other side of the room. They placed a folder filled with papers on it. Everyone in the room, once again apart from Amy, gathered around. Tails grabbed the folder and pulled out the papers. He took a quick glace at them to get an idea what they were about.

“Null Space?” he pondered out loud.

“Some kind of a dimension, we figured,” Rouge explained. “There’s a lot of scientific jargon though and stuff about the Phantom Ruby, and you know more about those than we do, hence why we wanted you to look at this.” Tails nodded, and flipped through the papers. Everyone waited in anticipation as the fox went through the documents, occasionally frowning and raising an eyebrow in reaction to the text he was consuming. After a couple of minutes Tails placed the documents on the table and spread them around.

“Okay, here’s what I have,” he began. “It’s a dimension, seemingly a pocket dimension within our own. Nothing exists in it. It has an atmosphere with oxygen, but I doubt any regular being would last there for more than a couple of hours. Honestly it kind of looks like a black hole suppressed within our dimension? I’m not sure how that works, I’d need to do some experiments and actually research this if I wanted to figure that out. I’m also willing to bet this is some kind of a Phantom Ruby trick.”

“How are you sure it’s a Ruby trick?” Espio asked. Tails looked the chameleon dead in the eye.

“Tell me, what isn’t a Phantom Ruby trick these days? Come on, humor me,” the fox demanded. Espio raised up his hands.

“I was just asking,” he said. “This seems a bit much for the ruby, don’t you think? It’s already capable of creating illusions and virtual realities.”

“Exactly. So what’s stopping it from being even more stupidly overpowered?” Tails continued. Sonic raised an eyebrow. Was Tails just having a bad day, or what was up with his attitude?

“Wait, what?!” Amy suddenly shouted out. Everyone turned to look at her. A voice came out the radio Amy was holding in her hand, but it wasn’t loud enough for anyone but Amy to hear clearly.

“Ames?” Sonic asked.

“What do you mean he’s- H-hang on, I’ll put you on speaker, everyone needs to hear you,” Amy said to the radio, pressed a couple of buttons and directed the signal into the speakers next to the monitors.

“Am I on?” a familiar voice echoed in the control room.

“Knuckles?” Rouge asked.

“Affirmative,” Omega confirmed.

“Okay, guys, listen up, there’s a radio transmission going around in the cities, even in Red Bay, and it’s intentionally avoiding the HQ’s radios. It’s about Infinite. He’s threatening the Metropolis, and saying he’s going to destroy it.”

“What?!” Shadow shouted out.

“Yeah, I’m not joking, we gotta get there right now and stop him!”

“Who do you need?” Amy asked, ready to arrange everyone’s radio connections.

“I want Espio and Ava with me. Team Dark could also come in handy, there’s probably gonna be a lot of Eggman’s robots that need to be busted through.”

“We’ll be on it,” Rouge assured.

“Great. And, uh, well, if Sonic’s feeling up to it-”

“When am I not feeling up to it, Knux?” Sonic grinned.

“Knuckles, did Infinite mention anything about something called Null Space in his broadcast?” Tails asked.

“Huh, he did actually. How did you know?”

“A good guess. I’ll be going as well, then.”

“What?” Sonic exclaimed. Tails looked at the hedgehog.

“You heard me. If Infinite is planning on doing something with Null Space I might even need to be there. I have an idea of what’s going on with it, and maybe I can get some valuable information about it I can’t get otherwise,” he explained. “Sure this could be a one-time thing and Infinite won’t play around with it in the future, but we can’t just count on that. Infinite is unpredictable.” Sonic frowned.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright though?”

“Sure, I’ll just tag along with you,” Tails assured. Sonic nodded.

“Right, everyone grab a radio and get on the move,” Amy instructed. “There’s no time to waste, we need to save that city right now.”

***

Sonic and Tails were running on top of the skyscrapers in the Metropolis. The moon shone above the city, but it stood no chance to the lights that wrapped the city into a warm blanket that could be seen all the way from outer space with ease. Team Dark as well as the ragtag team of Knuckles, Espio and Ava had taken lower routes and left the roofs for Sonic and Tails, who had the speed and flight capabilities to traverse them with ease. The duo were scouting the heights in search of Infinite, who they assumed would want a good overview of the city for his schemes. Sonic looked around while dashing across a roof, avoiding an antennae or two. Without exchanging a word he jumped off a roof and caught Tails’ hands, and the fox begun carrying the hedgehog across the air, just like in the old days.

“Can you see him?” Sonic asked.

“No, but he must be around here somewhere,” Tails answered. He let go of Sonic’s other hand and grabbed a device tied around his waist.

“The readings about ruby distortions are getting stronger. We must be getting close,” he explained. They came across another roof, and Sonic jumped on it. He suddenly felt a strange sensation.

“Tails?” he asked carefully. The fox fiddled more with his gadget.

“...he’s close. Very close. We need to be careful,” Tails whispered and landed next to Sonic. The instant the fox was on the roof a red flash illuminated the area. Sonic and Tails shielded their eyes as immense cackling filled the air.

“Oh, don’t be shy,” a distorted voice beckoned. “It’s just me.”

“Infinite!” Sonic yelled. The red light vanished, and in it’s place stood Infinite. The jackal straightened his mask, and turned to face Sonic and Tails, who were just a few feet away from him.

“Did you miss me, Sonic?” Infinite chuckled. Sonic scoffed.

“You wish.”

“Why, that’s not a nice way to greet an old friend, is it now?”

“As if you had any friends,” Sonic taunted, and stepped in front of Tails, shielding him. Infinite let out another chuckle.

“I don’t need to rely on puny friends to be strong,” he stated, and looked directly at Tails. The fox stared back, his eyes filled with something of determination and anger. Infinite’s eye flashed with red.

“Why don’t I show you exactly how much friends can get in your way?” the jackal asked, and the ruby on his chest flashed with red light, once again illuminating the area. Before Sonic and Tails had time to react, Infinite had already teleported behind them and kicked Tails on the other side of the roof. Sonic’s eyes widened.

“Tails!” he screamed, and rushed towards his friend. Infinite was faster. He once again teleported, this time right in front of Sonic, and knocked him back. The jackal then turned to face Tails, who was struggling to get off the floor, and pointed his open palm at the space behind the fox. Some kind of a portal started forming behind Tails. He turned his head to take a look at it, and his eyes widened.

“That’s right, Prower,” Infinite said with a smile encoded in his voice. “It’s Null Space.” The jackal chuckled.

“And guess what? You’re gonna get to experience it first-hand.” Tails lunged away from the portal, trying to grab onto something as he felt the portal started to pull him in. But he wasn’t fast enough. Tails spiraled through the air towards the portal, unable to fight back.

“Tails!” Sonic screamed as he got off the floor. The hedgehog wasted no time. He jumped into the air and performed a homing attack on Infinite, gaining enough speed to grab Tails’ hand before the fox got sucked in. Unfortunately for the two Sonic was not holding on to anything, and they both spiraled into the portal that closed firmly behind them as Infinite’s focus was disturbed by Sonic’s attack.

***

Sonic and Tails stood on some kind of a platform made of cubes. Whenever either of them moved around, the platform extended with them. It was rather convenient, especially when the rest of the space around them was nothing but... a void. Or what seemed to be an endless void of nothing. There was absolutely nothing but darkness around them. Sonic was incredibly nervous. He had no idea what to do in this situation. Tails was sitting down on the platform, looking into the distance. Sonic was worried about him.

“L-look, Tails, we can make it out of this,” Sonic tried to assure his friend. “Like, there’s no way this place can go on forever, we’ll find a way out.”

“Sonic...” Tails sighed. The hedgehog didn’t listen.

“We just, we just gotta...”

“Sonic.”

“...go that way! Yeah, let’s try that way, I’m sure we’ll-”

“Sonic!” Sonic jumped a little, then looked at Tails. The fox looked so much more tired than he had a couple of hours ago.

“Look,” Tails sighed. “I appreciate the effort I guess. But it’s useless. There’s nothing you can do this time. This is Null Space. We can’t escape from here, and we’ll probably die in a couple of hours after using up all the oxygen in here.” Tails turned to look back into the distance. Sonic was devastated. He didn’t want to believe Tails’ words, but Sonic knew he was right. Tails was always right. He barely ever made mistakes. Sonic walked around nervously, unable to sit still as he racked his brains. Surely there had to be something they could do.

“You- You can’t just give up,” he finally said as he turned to face Tails, or rather the fox’s back. “The Tails I know never gives up!” Tails chuckled softly.

“People change, Sonic,” he said. “The Tails you know hasn’t been around for a long time.” Sonic blinked.

“That’s really edgy of you, you know?” he noted. Tails turned his head to look Sonic dead in the eye. Sonic let out a deep sigh and ruffled his quills.

“Ughhh, it’s not like that’s true anyway! I saw the Tails I used to know the day I came back, I saw it in your eyes when you walked into that room and saw my face! I’ve seen it every day since!” Tails shook his head.

“You wish.”

“It’s true!”

“You’re just naive,” Tails dismissed. “I don’t have the energy or the willpower to be that 8-year-old who always believed in everyone and thought you were the coolest person ever and all that jazz. I’m tired, Sonic. And I’ve changed. That’s what people do when they grow older.” He looked at Sonic, and then turned back to looking into the distance.

“But I guess you wouldn’t know, would you?” he chuckled sadly. Sonic clenched his fist, and bit his lip.

“Tails,” he muttered. “You’re better than this. You don’t give up. You never do. Even when things are looking bad and grim you always find a solution to it and save the day. I’ve seen you do it so many times in the past. And you’ve helped the resistance so much even when I wasn’t here. You’ve fixed their weapons and gadgets and made them new ones, and you’ve found out more about Infinite and the Phantom Ruby than anyone else. If anyone could stand up to them at this point it’s you. You are literally, honestly the coolest person I know, Tails. You just, you just can’t give up like this. Please, can you do this for me?” Tails slowly turned around to look at Sonic again. The hedgehog was desperate. Sonic swallowed.

“Please, Tails,” he begged. Tails blinked, and looked down onto the ground.

“It’s... it’s been very long since you’ve asked me to do something for you, hasn’t it?” he said. Tails kept staring at the ground, he was in deep thought. Sonic shut up. It’s not like he knew what to say, anyway, but he didn’t want to disturb Tails if he really was trying to figure a way out of here. Suddenly Tails’ eyes lit up.

“The documents,” he said. Sonic blinked.

“What about the documents?”

“There was something in those, I didn’t quite get that far before we had to go, but there was a mention of the fabric of Null Space.” Tails got up and started pacing around, trying to remember the little detail he had spotted earlier.

“It was, it was something about how unstable this place is, and how the Phantom Ruby can pierce the general fabric of it because it has so much power in it. It focuses all that power into one place, and pierces the fabric...” Tails suddenly stopped and shut up.

“That’s it.”

“I- I don’t think I follow?” Sonic admitted.

“We just need to pierce the fabric by putting enough power and pressure into one part of it,” Tails explained. He turned to look at Sonic. “And I think I know someone who likes piercing things by putting a lot of power and pressure into a specific part of them.” Sonic blinked, not quite catching Tails’ train of thought. Tails sighed.

“You go really fast, in fact you go so fast you can destroy walls and stuff with ease, and that’s you putting a lot of power and pressure into one place and that destroys the walls and stuff?” he explained.

“Oh!” Sonic exclaimed. “So you’re saying-”

“-we might get out of here if you go fast enough to pierce the fabric of Null Space,” Tails cut him off. Sonic smiled, and offered Tails his hand.

“Ready?” he asked. A smile danced on Tails’ lips.

“Go for it,” he encouraged. The two begun running towards a direction, Sonic gaining more speed with every step. Tails hung onto his hand, and Sonic hold on tight. In a matter of seconds the sound barrier was broken, but Sonic kept accelerating. They had to get out of here. Sonic had to do this for Tails. His best friend. His only brother.

A light encased the hedgehog and the fox as they broke free from Null Space.

***

Suddenly the floor disappeared under Sonic’s feet. He let out a yelp as he started falling, but before he knew it his hand was caught by Tails, who had quickly adjusted to the lack of solid ground by spinning his tails.

“Careful,” Tails smirked. “Gravity is a bitch.” Sonic laughed a bit and looked at the ground below. It was the Metropolis, still shining way brighter than the moon ever could. The others must have driven Infinite off and put a stop to his plans.

Suddenly the radio on Tails’ waist started making some noise.

“Tails?! Sonic?! Are you guys alright?!” Amy’s voice frantically called on the other end. Sonic grabbed the radio so Tails wouldn’t have to hold on to him with only one hand.

“Hey Ames,” Sonic laughed, glad to hear her voice.

“Oh my goodness, you’re okay?”

“Yeah, alive and well, both of us,” Sonic confirmed. “Just had a bit of a, well, detour I guess?”

“One hell of a detour,” Tails muttered and chuckled a bit. Sonic laughed again.

“Oh, yeah, is everything okay with Metropolis now?” he asked Amy.

“Yeah, Team Dark and Knuckles, Espio and Ava took care of the robots and Infinite. Apparently Rouge, Shadow and Omega saw you guys getting sucked into some kind of a portal or something? Whatever it was we got really worried but, but I’m so glad you’re okay!”

“Yeah, I’m glad we’re fine too,” Sonic smiled. “I suppose we’re good to come home?”

“Go for it, yeah, I’ll let everyone know you’re okay in the meantime.”

“Awesome,” Sonic grinned, and put the radio back on Tails’ waist.

“Right, if you take us back to the ground we can-”

“Nah, I can carry us there,” Tails smiled. “You’ve done enough for me today.” Sonic’s eyes lit up, and he smiled as the fox changed course and begun flying back to the HQ. Sonic sighed happily. Miles Tails Prower was back in business, and better than ever, as it should be.


	9. Escaping from Your Purpose Is Impossible

The sun rose as it always did, even after the events that had occurred in the Metropolis. Its warm rays made their way into Eggman’s office through some rather small windows, and landed onto the mess of cords on the floor. Eggman sipped his coffee, and winced in repulsion. Cubot must have once again put sugar in it. The doctor mumbled something about having to watch his sugar intake and put the mug on the table next to him. He then picked up a couple of documents off the table and begun investigating them. Eggman frowned. Even more governments were questioning his decision to disband G.U.N. a few years back and replace it with his own robot army. Exactly how many times did he have to reassure people that just because his robots have a habit of assaulting small, anthropomorphic woodland creatures doesn’t mean that they’re inherently out for blood? Safety measures are a thing that exist. And of course convincing everyone about his planned improvements to various social problems wasn’t a walk in the park, either. Fair enough, he’s the infamous doctor Robotnik, the big-time villain who threatened to blow up the earth (and kind of succeeded in this endeavor once), but people clearly weren’t seeing the bigger picture this time. The upcoming week was starting to look a lot like an excessive mess of video conferences and anger management. Eggman sighed. Things could never go the way he wanted them to, could they?  
A red flash illuminated the room all of a sudden. Eggman sighed again, this time deeply. Of course. Of course that jackal had to barge in with his nonsense. Eggman spun his chair in order to face the unwanted guest, and dramatically placed his hands on the armrests.

“What do you want,” Eggman hissed. Infinite dropped onto the floor from mid-air and straightened his mask. The jackal didn’t answer.

“I don’t HAVE all day to deal with your attitude, Infinite. What. Do. You. Want,” Eggman growled. Infinite looked directly at Eggman.

“You know exactly what I want, Robotnik,” he carefully articulated.

“Which is?”

“Have you looked at the news today?”

“Yes, and there was nothing interesting.”

“Exactly,” Infinite hissed. “The Metropolis is still standing.”

“Well thank Chaos,” Eggman smirked. “Looks like that resistance isn’t just loitering around then.”

“What do you mean?” Infinite demanded.

“I mean that you’re an irresponsible child entrusted with too much power for your own good,” Eggman answered. “And I am one lucky man to have the resistance around to prevent you from destroying us all.”

“So you’re saying,” Infinite slowly said, “That you’re not on my side anymore?”

“I’m saying that I never assumed you would follow your vision of the world this literally,” Eggman answered. “I’ve tolerated you for long enough, I let you have Red Bay already. But Metropolis was the last straw. You dared to threaten the jewel of my empire in MY name and attempted to destroy it. Do you have any idea what that does to my public image? And, by extension, to our goals?”

“I don’t care about your public image, Robotnik,” Infinite hissed. “If you lent me a hand this world would already be on it’s knees.”

“See, you do need my help, don’t you?” Eggman chuckled. “But using force is unfortunately not the way to go to create a long-lasting and functional society. I learn from other people’s mistakes. Besides, had you not let Sonic escape, your plans would’ve gone through with little issue.” Infinite scoffed.

“There was no point in keeping that hedgehog in stasis anyway, it was wasting the resources you care oh-so-much about.”

“He just stopped you yesterday, didn’t he?” Eggman noted. He spun around in his chair again, focusing once again on the various documents on his desk. “You’re underestimating him.”

“Unlike you I have defeated him twice of thrice already while you’ve sat in this room doing nothing,” Infinite argued. “With the Phantom Ruby I am unstoppable.”

“Unstoppable, huh...” Eggman mumbled to himself. The word brought him mild discomfort.

“It’s not like my research on him was completed, anyway,” Eggman said. “The data I currently have is insufficient to create androids in his image.”

“Pah!” Infinite scoffed. “Your poor excuses are fooling no one.”

“Excuses?” Eggman raised an eyebrow.

“You just didn’t want me to kill him.”

“Says who?”

“Stop playing dumb, Robotnik.”

“Look, if you’re just going to argue about nonsense, leave. Go play with the resistance, blow up more of Red Bay, I don’t care,” Eggman announced. “I have more important things to do, like keeping this empire standing.”

“The empire you wouldn’t even have if I hadn’t assisted you,” Infinite commented. “You do understand that nothing, absolutely nothing, is stopping me from taking over your pathetic empire and finally getting my revenge?”

“Nothing except me.”

“Exactly,” Infinite hissed. Eggman put down his documents. A drop of sweat rolled across his temple.

“If you weren’t in my way, this world would’ve been in ruins a long time ago. You’ve said it yourself, again and again,” Infinite said, his voice cold as ice. Eggman frowned and bit his lip. He reached out for a buzzer on his desk, attempting to call in his robots. A red flash appeared next to him and grabbed his arm.

“Calling for help is futile, doctor,” Infinite hissed. “We both know how this ends.” Eggman took a deep breath. He had always feared that it would come to this, from the day he saw Infinite in action with the ruby prototype. It was too much power for one person to yield. It had done something to Infinite, something that he should’ve seen coming, but never did. Infinite tightened his grip around Eggman’s arm, and lunged his free hand around the doctor’s neck. Eggman gasped for air, a reaction which caused Infinite to give out a satisfied chuckle. Eggman was at his mercy.

“Your time is up, Robotnik,” the jackal hissed. “It’s time for you and your empire to burn in hell.”

Doctor Ivo Robotnik was gone.


	10. Hold Onto Anything

The resistance’s control room was bathing in as much warm sunlight as the room’s windows would allow through. Everyone had gathered there, helping each other patch up wounds and cuts they got in the Metropolis last night. Vector helped Knuckles apply more bandages to the echidna’s bruised quills, Tails adjusted some settings in Ava’s wispon, Amy kept an eye on the monitors while having a chat with Rouge and Espio. Charmy was cleaning some dirt off of Omega, and Shadow, Sonic and Silver had gathered to the couch, not to talk, but rather to have some peace and quiet. The morning was taking it’s time at the resistance’s HQ, floating by slow as ever. Sonic exhaled deeply. He wanted to have more mornings like this with his friends. The whole war thing had severely messed up any and all sense of normalcy in their lives, and even though Sonic had been back only for a short while he had grown to appreciate slow moments like this. Perhaps it was a bit ironic of him, but Sonic wanted to do stuff like this more when the war would be over. Just be with his friends. Sonic wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done it more six years ago.

A sudden beeping broke the otherwise calm atmosphere in the room. Amy’s ears twitched towards the sound coming from the radio. She frowned.

“What is it?” Rouge asked.

“It’s a call from someone,” Amy explained. “But... We’re all here right now, and I don’t handle calls on that line from anyone but you guys.” Everyone in the room turned to look at Amy and the monitors. Amy glanced around the room, receiving an encouraging nod from Knuckles. She reached out for her keyboard, pressed a couple of buttons and let the call on speakers. The voice on the line wasted no time asking whether or not they were on.

“Resistance,” the distorted voice called out. Sonic instantly jumped up from the couch.

“Infinite!” he yelled out. Sonic would recognize the voice anywhere, no matter how distorted it’d be. Everyone else in the room got more alert just as suddenly. Amy swallowed, grabbed her microphone and held it firmly in her hands.

“What do you want,” she asked surprisingly softly. The voice on the line chuckled.

“Always a delight to hear your voice, miss Rose,” Infinite said.

“I am not here for useless chitchat,” Amy noted.

“I’m glad we’re on the same page, Rose. I won’t waste your or anyone else’s time. I have an invitation for your resistance.” Amy didn’t respond. Sonic noticed that her hand was shaking a bit.

“Tonight, at midnight, this world is going to burn. You are welcome to come and witness it - in fact, I encourage it,” Infinite announced, a smile hidden in his voice. Amy swallowed.

“What do you mean,” she asked. “I thought you had an empire to rule.”

“The empire was Robotnik’s, and he’s none of my concern anymore.”

“None of your concern?” Infinite let out a chuckle.

“Ivo Robotnik has deceased,” he hissed. “And with him gone there is no one who could possibly get in my way.” Sonic’s eyes widened. Did he hear Infinite right? Eggman was... dead? Was Infinite being serious? Sonic supposed that there was no reason for the jackal to lie, but... really? Was Eggman really gone? Sonic frowned. How was he supposed to feel about something like this? Eggman was a bad guy, but Sonic had known for him for so long. Was he supposed to feel happy? Because that certainly wasn’t the emotion he was feeling at the moment. Everyone in the room was quiet. Amy wasn’t responding to Infinite. The jackal chuckled once again.

“As I said, I will burn this world. How exactly is still up for interpretation, but I’m open for suggestions,” he smiled. “You’re welcome to watch.” Amy reached out for the button to close the line, but Infinite wasn’t quite done.

“Oh, and how could I forget: Shadow.” Shadow raised his eyebrow from his frown.

“I want to deal with you personally. I will be waiting for you at Eggman Empire Fortress. If you fail to show up, well,” Infinite chuckled again. “I suppose I’ll just have to burn you last.” The call cut into static. Infinite had left. Amy dropped her microphone onto the table and collapsed in her chair. Knuckles got up from his chair and walked next to her. He placed his hand on her shoulder as she covered her mouth with her hand. Sonic frowned.

“Amy...?” he asked. Amy closed her eyes and shook her head.

“What are we supposed to do...?” she whispered. “He’s... he’s serious about it this time. He’s... He’s going to...” Sonic looked at Knuckles. The echidna bit his lip.

“If there’s no Eggman, then who’s going to keep Infinite from doing whatever the hell he wants...?” Knuckles pointed out. Sonic looked around the room. More or less everyone seemed to agree with Amy and Knuckles. There was no hope. Infinite would destroy the world. It’s not like he didn’t have the power to do it, anyway. And Eggman wouldn’t be there to tell him no, or to send his robots after the jackal if he stepped out of line. Sonic knew that things weren’t looking good at all. But...

“But you can’t give up like this,” Sonic said.

“What exactly are we supposed to do?” Espio asked quietly. “Infinite has the ruby, and he can do anything he wants with it.”

“He can create an army to outnumber us all in a blink of an eye,” Rouge muttered.

“Affirmative,” Omega said. “The chances of a victorious outcome are minimal.” Sonic looked at Charmy. Even the bee was quiet. Sonic bit his lip and turned to look at Ava. She looked away, closed her eyes and shook her head. Sonic turned to Silver, but the hedgehog had directed his eyes at the floor, looking just as hopeless as everyone else. Even the people who under any other circumstances would’ve fought back were feeling grim. Sonic ruffled his quills. No way this was happening again, and in such a large scale on top of it.

“Guys,” he sighed. “I know this is looking bad. I’m not stupid. But if we give up now he WILL win. We need to fight back, that’s what you guys have been doing for the longest time already.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Vector sighed. “You haven’t been at this for six years, struggling with that jackal’s shit every day.”

“I know that he’s powerful and you’ve been through a lot, but-”

“No. You don’t know,” Espio mumbled. “You haven’t been through what we have. You’re still just that kid we lost six years ago.” Sonic raised his eyebrows.

“I’m... I’m not!”

“Don’t be naive, Sonic,” Espio sighed. Sonic clenched his fist.

“We’ve done the impossible before, guys! We’ve done it together. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to do it again!” Knuckles glanced over at Sonic, and shifted to look at the ground. Rouge slowly shook her head. Others, too, seemed to disagree with Sonic. The blue hedgehog bit his lip.

“Guys, we gotta-”

“It’s nice of you to try, Sonic, but words can’t make this situation any better,” Espio quietly said. “It’d be naive to think that-”

“I AM NOT A FUCKING CHILD!” Sonic yelled out and slammed his fist onto the coffee table. The room became dead silent. Sonic’s words seemed to have left everyone in shock. The blue blur ruffled his quills aggressively once again and exhaled loudly.

“You guys- You guys don’t even KNOW what Infinite’s gonna do and you’re all down in the dumps already! What the hell!? What kind of- What kind of resisting is that?! You’re just gonna let this happen, huh?! ‘Weh weh weh it’s useless to fight back-’ Well goodness me we’ve beaten actual literal GODS and fought against overpowered as heck enemies and we’ve WON, but the moment some dang jackal has a gemstone you’re just- you’re just- ARGH!” Sonic kicked over the coffee table. He looked around the room, and locked eyes with Shadow.

“And Shads!” he shouted out. “Infinite wants to fight Shads! He wants to fight THE ultimate life form! A creature so strong that G.U.N. is afraid of him! No one in their right mind would mess with Shads! He could take Infinite down!”

“Sonic, I-” Shadow tried to interrupt, but Sonic was on a roll. There was no stopping him in a mindset like this.

“We can’t just sit here doing nothing and ALLOW him to destroy the world! We don’t do that! We don’t fucking do that! And I don’t CARE if believing in us makes me a fucking child, because I’m right! I know I am right! Infinite isn’t unstoppable!” Sonic was breathing heavily. He didn’t usually yell this much, and it was getting to him. He exhaled deeply

“Guys, we have to do this. We have to save the world. That’s why you made this resistance, right? To save the world and end the war.” Sonic sat down on the floor.

“Please,” he sighed. “We have to do this.” Everyone was quiet. Sonic licked his lips. That had been... something new, yeah. He eyes around the room. Everyone seemed pretty shocked. They had all the reason to be.

“He’s right,” Shadow broke the silence. “We have to do this.” Sonic turned to look at Shadow, his eyes shining like emeralds. Shadow believed him.

“Shadow-” Espio started, but the hedgehog raised his hand.

“I know. God I know. But Sonic brought up valid points. Sitting here and worrying about this will only let Infinite follow through with his plan. Besides...” A smirk danced on Shadow’s mouth briefly. “It seems like I have a date with the devil, anyway. Might as well not let that go to waste.” Everyone had shifted to look at Shadow. He in turn turned to look at Amy and Knuckles.

“Captains,” he said, smiling. “Would it be time for making a plan of action for this upcoming show?”

***

Sonic’s speech perhaps wasn’t the most thought-out one, but it had the desired effect on the resistance. Everyone was now gathered around the room’s bigger table, and Knuckles and Amy were pulling the strings, trying to make as comprehensive of a plan as they possibly could with their limited information.

“Right, Infinite wants to duel Shadow at the Eggman Empire Fortress. I reckon we should strike then, when he’s busy with Shadow,” Knuckles suggested. Shadow nodded.

“Though I cannot guarantee I can necessarily defeat him. He, too, is strong with that ruby of his,” he reminded. Knuckles frowned.

“I guess we could try and strike him together then? But, well, again, the ruby is a bit of an issue.”

“If we could somehow disable the ruby, even for a moment, we could have a chance at defeating him,” Amy thought out loud. Tails slapped down some papers onto the table.

“Well you’re in luck, because these documents Sonic and Silver found in Mystic Jungle are helpful in that regard,” the fox smirked. “Let me explain. I’ve had a look at these, and they detail a lot, I mean a LOT of information about the Phantom Ruby, or at least it’s prototypes. All the prototypes use the real ruby as their power source.”

“I thought that was just your theory?” Silver asked. Tails nodded.

“It was, but these documents validate it,” the fox explained. “And seeing as this is the case Infinite can be stopped at least briefly if we destroy the prototype’s power source.” Ava frowned slightly.

“And that means all the prototypes will lose their power?” she asked. Tails looked at her, his eyes widening and then moving into a frown.

“...yeah,” he finally said. Ava nodded.

“I can take care of that. If my prototype is connected to the real ruby as well, I could use it as some kind of a tracking device to find the power source, right?”

“That’s actually brilliant!” Tails exclaimed. “I mean, assuming that it works. It seems likely, though, especially if you’re in close range of the power source.”

“But where is it, though?” Vector butted in. “We don’t have time to look for it, do we?”

“I feel like it would only make sense if it was at Eggman’s fortress,” Amy figured. “That’s one of the most heavily guarded places in the empire. And, well I don’t know if this is true but, if the prototypes get stronger in the presence of the Phantom Ruby it would make sense for Infinite to challenge Shadow there if the power source is there, right?”

“An excellent point, hun,” Rouge smiled. “What do you think, fox boy?”

“It sounds possible, yes. And judging by the documents the prototypes do get stronger the closer they are to the Phantom Ruby,” Tails confirmed. “That might make your part tougher though, Shadow...”

“I can manage,” Shadow assured. “I’ve beaten all kinds of foes in the past, Infinite shouldn’t be much different.” Tails nodded.

“Right,” Knuckles drew attention to himself. “Shadow will duel Infinite and slow him down so Ava can go destroy the power source. The rest of us will provide backup by taking down Eggman’s robots Infinite will no doubt take advantage of and keep virtual realities at bay.”

“May I request backup?” Ava asked. Knuckles raised his eyebrows.

“Sure.

“I want Sonic to come with me.”

“Oh?” Sonic exclaimed. He wasn’t expecting Ava to ask for help, it didn’t seem like her.

“Wait, why?” Knuckles hurried to question.

“Even with my tech I’m not as fast as him. And it is our priority to disable Infinite’s prototype as fast as possible,” Ava explained. “Sonic is the fastest of all of us. He could no doubt help me get to the power source faster and help me with destroying it as well.” Knuckles frowned.

“Would you be okay with that, Sonic?”

“Of course!” Sonic answered. “It’s no problem.”

“Then it’s settled, no?” Amy declared. “Sonic and Ava take on the power source, Shadow takes on Infinite and the rest of us will take on any robots, illusions or virtual realities Infinite might chuck at us.”

“Even me?” Charmy asked. Espio’s eyes widened.

“No! You’ll stay here,” he panicked. Amy frowned.

“I get that you’re worried, Espio, but we need everyone’s help. Even Charmy’s,” she said. “Besides, no one’s gonna stay behind this time. Even I’ll take care of the radios on site. Charmy would be all alone.” Vector put his hand on Espio’s shoulder.

“We gotta take the pup with us, Espio,” Vector agreed with Amy. “Besides, what were you doing when your were 12? Probably nothing safe, I can bet.” Espio blushed slightly.

“Fine, fine...” he reluctantly gave in. Espio turned to look at Charmy again.

“But you better not get in trouble out there, okay?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll just stab anyone who gets too close!” Charmy promised with enthusiasm, and pretended to stab invisible enemies in the air. Espio let out a chuckle.

“Alright team,” Knuckles said. “Time prepare for the battle. We’ll leave in the evening, that’ll give us enough time to get to the fortress before midnight. We’re going to win this one, goddammit!”

***

Sonic opened the door leading to the HQ’s roof and stepped outside. He needed some fresh air to clear his head before they left for Eggman’s fortress. Sonic looked at the edge of the roof. Besides the stunning view that opened up behind it he saw Shadow and Ava standing near the edge, seemingly having a conversation. Sonic exhaled quickly and hopped behind some large crates that had been on the roof since forever. He didn’t want to interrupt his friends. He was curious about their conversation, though, and couldn’t help but to peek out from behind the crates and try and eavesdrop, just a tiny bit. He heard Ava sigh.

“Are you sure it’ll be alright?” she asked Shadow. The latter shook his head.

“He’s strong. And once damn near killed me, without even being present,” Shadow stated.

“You’re worried?”

“Of course.” Shadow stared off into the distance.

“How about you? Stupid question, I know.” Ava, too, focused her sight to the distance.

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “I know the consequences, it’s not about that. I just... I don’t know what I’ll do.” Shadow smiled for a moment.

“You’re very brave,” he said. “I admire that in you.” Ava laughed silently.

“I’d call it foolishness if I were you,” she sighed. “I guess that’s what soldiers do, though. We’re just... foolish.” The two were quiet for a moment.

“Do you think Sonic will be alright?” Ava eventually asked. Sonic’s ear twitched at the mention of his name. Shadow didn’t say anything for a bit. Eventually he shrugged.

“I’m not sure anymore,” he confessed.

“He was... very shocked when we went to Red Bay,” Ava revealed. Shadow frowned slightly.

“It’s not that he isn’t strong, though,” Shadow pointed out.

“True. I suppose we just... gotta hope for the best,” Ava said. Shadow nodded, and looked at the setting sun.

“We need to leave soon,” he said. Ava nodded. Two two walked back to the door, past Sonic’s hiding spot, and went indoors. After the door had closed after them Sonic walked out of the shadows. He bit his lip. Ava and Shadow were worried about the showdown, and Sonic as well. He wasn’t sure what they had meant with Sonic being alright.

“...I have to be strong,” Sonic decided. “For them. For everyone.” The hedgehog turned to look at the sunset. It was as warm as the morning sun.

“We’re going to win,” he said. “We’re going to win, and come back home, and everything is going to be alright. I promise.”


	11. Mallard's Tomb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alec Holowka - Mallard's Tomb

The Eggman Empire Fortress loomed in front of the resistance. It was nearly midnight, and they had arrived to the wasteland just in time. Amy was handing out radios for everyone and giving instructions to the leaders of the resistance’s other units, and Knuckles was prepping everyone to his best abilities. Sonic stretched out his arms and legs. If there was anything he was looking forward to it was the running and parkour he was going to have to do.

“You ready, Ava?” he asked. The dog weighed her electric wispon in her hand and nodded.

“Once Knuckles says we’re good to go we’ll leave,” she answered. Sonic nodded. He was ready. Or as ready as he could possibly feel. Shadow walked next to Sonic and Ava, followed by Rouge and Omega. Sonic raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Rouge and Omega are fighting with you, too?” he asked. Shadow shook his head.

“No, it’s... it’s too dangerous. I have to do this alone,” Shadow explained. Rouge swallowed.

“We could provide some kind of backup, hun,” she offered.

“Affirmative. We must look after one another,” Omega agreed.

“Infinite wants to fight only me, there’s no need for you two to get involved,” Shadow denied the offer. “You’re more useful taking care of the other threats.” Rouge nodded and looked down.

“If you’re absolutely sure,” she sighed. “We’re just a call away though, so if you end up needing any help at all-”

“-I’ll give you a call,” Shadow smiled. He turned to look at the empire, as did Sonic and Ava.

“Do you know where he wants to fight you?” Sonic asked. Shadow shook his head.

“I’d imagine he wants to be out in the open. I certainly hope he won’t fight inside the building, that would endanger you two,” Shadow fretted. Sonic frowned a bit.

“I promise we’ll destroy that power source in no time,” he assured. “You won’t have to fight for long.” Shadow smiled.

“I do hope so,” he sighed. Some footsteps approached the group. It was Knuckles.

“Okay, we’ve got everything prepared,” he announced. “You three can get on the move now.” Sonic gave him a thumbs up, and offered Ava his hand.

“We need to be stealthy, remember?” Ava reminded. Sonic sighed.

“Of course, of course,” he dismissed.

“Sonic,” Shadow called out before the blue hedgehog got moving. Sonic turned around.

“Good luck,” Shadow smiled. Sonic smiled back. He looked at Ava, received an approving nod and begun running towards the fortress. Every step gained him more speed. Ava kept holding on to Sonic’s hand, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to keep up on foot at this point. This time Sonic wasn’t aiming to break the sound barrier and crashing through the fortress’ walls. This was a sneaking mission. He and Ava had to find some other way in that didn’t involve destroying too much property. The two of them reached the fortress, and Sonic jumped up to the fortress’ wall to run along it. Perhaps there would be a window or an air vent somewhere?

“On your left!” Ava called out. Sonic looked to the direction. Bingo! It actually was an air vent that no one would probably end up missing anyway. Sonic turned towards it and kept running. Ava took her grappling hook and launched it towards the vent, pulling out the grate in front of it and opening it up. She then fired another hook, latching it on the wall just over the vent. Sonic slowed down, let go of Ava’s hand and lunged for the vent. He managed to grab the edge of it and pulled himself inside. Ava pulled herself up with her hook shortly after.

“You alright?” Sonic asked. Ava nodded.

“Let’s keep moving.”

***

Locating the power source wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. Ava’s ruby was of some help as it resonated with the Phantom Ruby, but at the end of the day Sonic and Ava were mostly running through the hallways and rooms of the fortress without much of an idea of where to go. The constant robot ambushes didn’t help the two of them either as they had to stop on their tracks to clear out the enemies. After yet another group of robots was nothing but scrap metal at their feet Sonic once again offered Ava his hand. The dog, however, shook her head.

“We’re running in circles,” she explained. “We need to slow down for a bit.”

“But Shadow-”

“I can’t focus at the speeds you go at,” Ava sighed, and begun fiddling around with her ruby, trying to focus on locating the power source. Sonic reluctantly pulled back his hand and looked around the hallway they were in. There was only one door in the whole corridor, and it was at the end of it. All the other hallways they had been in had featured a multitude of rooms at the very least.

“Ava?” Sonic asked. “There’s a room.”

“Yeah, so?”

“It’s the only room here.” Ava looked around as well, noticing the unusual lack of doors.

“Where did we run to?” she asked. Sonic shrugged awkwardly.

“I was just going somewhere that felt good?” he answered. “Maybe that just leads to the next hallway, I don’t know.”

“I wonder...” Ava muttered.

“Should we check it out?”

“What else are we supposed to do?” Ava asked. “For all we know it could be the power source.” Sonic nodded. The two jogged up to the door. It was a large metal door with an Eggman logo on it, and by the looks of it it was locked tight. Ava tried the handle. It wouldn’t budge.

“Inconvenient,” she muttered. Sonic looked around. There was a small scanner next to the door, presumably for eyes. He had to stand on his toes, but was able to reach it just barely. Ava looked over and fought the desire to roll her eyes.

“I don’t think that’s-” She got cut off by an approving couple of beeps.

“Access granted: Sonic the Hedgehog,” a voice emerged from the scanner. The lock clicked, signaling that the door was now open. Sonic raised his eyebrows and Ava’s jaw dropped.

“Excuse me,” she stuttered. “But what the fuck did you just do?”

“I uh, I looked at it, and, well, YEAH,” Sonic stuttered as well. “I didn’t like think it would actually work?” He and Ava looked at each other, and then the door. Sonic tried the handle. It gave in, and the door opened.

“...what the fuck,” Ava whispered softly. Sonic aggressively shrugged again. The two of them walked into the room with caution. The floor was covered in cords. There were several liquid-filled capsules all over the room, and the tubes connected to them added their own spice to the jungle of cords. The back wall was covered in monitors, under which stood a desk decorated with keyboards and papers. Sonic and Ava carefully approached it, making sure to not step on any of the cords. They reached the desk. Sonic grabbed the papers covering the keyboards.

“These are... letters or something? And they’re all assigned for Eggman,” he explained.

“Hm,” Ava thought. “That would mean this is his... oh I don’t know, room or office or something? Maybe there’s some kind of a map of this building on his computer.”

“Why would he have something like that?”

“Well, not literally a map, but some kind of a surveillance system or something,” Ava explained. “I’ve seen those in his laboratories and other places he owns. I think he made it himself, but Miles taught me how to hack into them.”

“Why?”

“It comes in handy sometimes.” Ava turned on the computer in front of her and begun working her way into the system. Sonic looked through the papers in his hand. Some of them were from politicians and other government people, some were from companies and other private people. They addressed some concerns about Eggman disbanding G.U.N. (he did that?), and how his security system relied heavily on violent robots, and whether his alternative power source was truly as environmentally friendly as he claimed. Sonic was rather surprised. He hadn’t imagined Eggman would go through something like this while ruling the empire.

“Fuck,” Ava exclaimed.

“What is it?”

“Everything is locked. I need a password.”

“Can’t you just hack it?”

“This is not a 90s hacker movie, Sonic. Just because I can type ‘dir’ and make stuff happen doesn’t mean I’m a hacker.”

“Dir?”

“Forget about it,” Ava muttered. “My point is that this is as far as we’ll get.” Sonic looked at the screen. The password wasn’t a word or a series of letters and number, but rather the computer wanted to scan a bar code. Sonic rolled his eyes. Eggman would be - or well, would’ve been that unnecessary.

“Wait,” Sonic suddenly realized. “It wants a bar code?” He reached for the tag in his right ear. He had almost forgotten about it, but he had that tag Eggman supposedly had put on him, and it had a bar code on it. Ava stared at the hedgehog.

“There’s no reason that should work,” she said.

“If that was true then we wouldn’t be in this room to begin with,” Sonic shrugged. Ava muttered something about Sonic being right, and gave up the seat for him. Sonic sat down, and Ava activated the webcam. Sonic turned his tag to face the camera. After a few seconds the computer beeped delightfully and granted access to Eggman’s computer. Or it would have, if a video message hadn’t suddenly popped up. It prompted Sonic and Ava to press play. Sonic looked at Ava, and the dog nodded. Sonic pressed play. The file loaded for a second, and then presented the screen with Eggman.

“Well,” he began. “I guess if you’re seeing this you must be Sonic. And I must be dead. How delightful.” Sonic and Ava couldn’t say a word. Both of them couldn’t quite progress what was currently taking place.

“I’ll save us both the time and make this short. You’re here because you want to stop Infinite. At least I don’t see any other reason for you to loiter around MY office,” Eggman continued. He sighed.

“Whatever. Infinite wants to destroy this world, you already know that I’m guessing. He wants to burn in, specifically. I wouldn’t be surprised if he decides to drop the sun on us all, honestly. But he has his reasons, I suppose. It has to do with his ‘squad’.”

“Squad?” Sonic thought out loud.

“He had this group of jackals with him when he met me. But there was... an accident, you could say. They all died. And of course Infinite blames ME for it, like it was my fault they got caught up in my robots. It was Shadow who attacked them first, anyway.”

“He did what?” Ava exclaimed. He and Sonic exchanged a quick look, and continued watching.

“In any case Infinite wants to revenge those deaths. He had a grudge towards me, and I doubt he would feel any different about Shadow. I’m not stupid, I know what’s coming. But you might wanna look after Shadow.” Sonic shifted nervously in the chair. Shadow was in a graver danger than he had thought.

“Worry not, though, there is a way to stop Infinite. His ruby needs the Phantom Ruby as it’s power source. You can destroy it. You need to go to the core of my fortress and disconnect the Phantom Ruby from the machine it’s held in. It’s not too difficult to find, bust down some walls if you need to, it’s not like I’ll be needing them anyway.” Sonic swallowed. Eggman sighed again, and looked somewhere away from the camera. He looked exhausted.

“You know, I didn’t create this empire for fun,” he suddenly changed the topic. “This world was just... rotten. I couldn’t stand it. I figured if I had enough power I could change it for the better. Make people less awful or something, I don't know. Yes, I used force and violence to do it and I’ve caused destruction, I admit it. But Infinite is worse. He would kill himself if it meant the destruction of everything. He has too much power for his own good.” Eggman was quiet. Sonic looked at Ava, and she nodded. Infinite did have too much power for a person like himself.

“Pah, I’ve wasted enough of your time. If you’re here you can’t waste any of it,” Eggman broke the silence and straightened his posture, looking at the camera again.

“Farewell Sonic. My admirable adversary.” The video ended and cut off into static, before the file closed itself. A notification popped up on screen, informing that the core of the fortress would now be accessible with Sonic’s information. Sonic and Ava stared at the screen. Neither of them really knew what to say. A deafening silence had taken over the room.

“We uh,” Sonic broke it. “We need to hurry. Yeah we need to hurry, Shadow’s in danger!” Ava blinked a few times before nodding in agreement. The two dashed out of the room, ready for the final rush for the fortress’s core.

***

Shadow skated the wasteland around the fortress. A deep nervousness cut through him like a knife. It had been a good while, but Infinite hadn’t showed up. It was way too quiet. Shadow kept looking around, trying to spot anything from a virtual reality to a jackal sighting, but there was nothing. He didn’t want to stop moving in the fear Infinite would catch him off-guard. Had Infinite lied to him about wanting to battle? Shadow remembered the words Sonic had said about him earlier that day, how Shadow was the ultimate lifeform and how no one in their right mind would dare to challenge him to a fight. Perhaps Infinite had chickened out. Perhaps he had given up on destroying the world. Or perhaps he had gone after Sonic and-

Shadow stopped in his tracks, and took a deep breath. No, this was not the time for overthinking. He had to focus. Keep his senses sharp. Shadow looked around once more. Still no one. Shadow took another deep breath.

“It’s rude to keep your guests waiting, you know,” he sighed calmly. That’s right, he had to keep his cool. Calm and collected Shadow. That’s how he was meant to be.

“Oh, I was just enjoying the show,” a distorted voice called out, making Shadow’s ears jet to the direction it was coming from. A red flash lit up the area, easily overdoing the light shining off of the moon. Infinite appeared behind Shadow, and dropped onto the ground. He was holding a red knife, and Shadow could’ve sworn that it glowed.

“You took your sweet time, I see,” Shadow said, keeping his voice calm. Infinite chuckled.

“You only have the rest of your life, Shadow,” Infinite laughed. “I figured you might want a moment to enjoy it.”

“I’ve had plenty,” Shadow dismissed, fiddling with his limiters. He might as well go all in, there wasn’t much to lose. Infinite smirked, and pointed his knife at Shadow.

“Good to hear you’ve prepared well,” Infinite’s voice smiled. “I hope you enjoy the show.” And instantly Infinite teleported, as did Shadow. Shadow popped up at various places, trying to locate Infinite. The jackal suddenly appeared behind Shadow, attempting to strike him with the knife, but Shadow was faster. He teleported behind Infinite, and kicked him to the ground. Shadow had barely enough time to drop one of his limiters as Infinite got up nearly immediately and teleported again. Shadow gritted his teeth and got moving. He dashed ahead with all his might. Infinite popped up next to him every now and then, trying to shove his knife into Shadow, but the hedgehog kept performing chaos control to dodge the assaults, attempting to drop more of his limiters whenever possible.

“You do understand you’re a murderer, right?” Infinite asked between his teleports. Shadow dodged the knife again.

“I haven’t killed a single person in my life,” Shadow disagreed. Infinite chuckled.

“You killed my family.”

“Knocked them out. There is a difference, if you didn’t know.”

“Oh, but of course,” Infinite hissed. “You knocked them out, and left them to die at Robotnik’s hands.” Shadow dodged yet another assault and swallowed. He didn’t feel all that good, knowing that his actions helped cause deaths. But Infinite was just trying to distract him, make Shadow vulnerable to his attacks. Shadow teleported from yet another knife and landed onto the ground away from it, keeping up his momentum as he tossed away his last limiter.

“That simply means that Eggman is the one to blame about this,” Shadow protested.

“You’re lying,” Infinite hissed. “I can see it in your eyes. You feel the guilt from their fates.”

“Because I have a heart. Unlike some of us by the looks of things.” Shadow chaos controlled away from a knife again, but this time he attempted to assault Infinite instead of just running away. Shadow thought he had succeeded and that Infinite couldn’t dodge in time, but his hope was crushed as he heard the distortion of the Phantom Ruby. Infinite chuckled, appeared behind Shadow in a matter of seconds and slammed him to the ground, not letting go. Shadow laid on his back, holding on to Infinite’s arms. The jackal was holding his knife, inching it closer to Shadow’s chest. A drop of sweat rolled across Shadow’s temple. This couldn’t be happening. He kept burning up his chaos energy to fight back Infinite and to keep his knife away. The jackal chuckled.

“Well, well, isn’t that just unfortunate,” Infinite smiled. “You have a heart. And hearts are so fragile after all, breaking from the tiniest provocation.” Shadow breathed heavily. He wasn’t sure what Infinite was implying, or how he would even know to imply anything, but Shadow didn’t like it in the slightest.

“Has your heart ever broken, Shadow?” Infinite purred. “I bet it has, several times even. But every time you’ve recovered, gotten over it, moved on, haven’t you?” The jackal laughed. Shadow gritted his teeth in anger.

“Oh, but don’t worry, I’m not going to break your heart,” Infinite chuckled. “I am only going to stop it.”


	12. Stranded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Red Vox - Stranded

Another wall came down in the fortress as Sonic and Ava blasted through it at the speed of sound. Eggman himself had said it was okay, there was no reason for Sonic to not create creative shortcuts on the spot. He and Ava busted through at the top of a large room, prompting Ava to use her grappling hook to swing the two across it to yet another wall. Sonic initiated his boost in mid-air, and the wall ahead of them was history. They landed onto the floor and kept moving at drastic speeds.

“Are we getting closer?” Sonic shouted to Ava.

“I think so. The defenses around here are getting tougher and I think my ruby is resonating harder. Keep going,” Ava shouted back. Sonic frowned slightly. Eggman could have given them more specific instructions, but what he had said had to do. Alternatively Sonic could’ve let Ava to actually find the security system and the map of the building along it, but the worry of Shadow’s situation had prevented Sonic from thinking as logically as he could’ve.

“Turn right!” Ava instructed suddenly.

“Through the wall or?”

“Sure, why not.” Sonic did as asked, ramming his body into the wall on his right and breaking it into pieces. He and Ava flew into the room, that seemed to be a bottomless pit with a large metal structure raised in the middle of it.

“I think we need to drop!” Ava yelled. Sonic’s eye’s widened.

“What?!”

“Trust me!” Ava urged, and let go of Sonic’s hand. Gravity took effect instantly, directing the dog’s course towards the ground rather than the adjacent wall. Sonic wasted no time pondering whether to trust Ava or not, he had already made up his mind. His momentum brought him to the wall across the room, but instead of boosting through Sonic kicked himself off it and towards the pit below him, spiraling into the depths.

Sonic dropped faster and faster, but the ground was nowhere to be seen. He grew worried. Bottomless pits weren’t real, he knew that much, but how deep did this room exactly go? And would he be able to react in time when he eventually did meet the ground? A realization hit Sonic. Ava had a grappling hook. But Sonic didn’t. She would be able to slow down her fall when necessary, but Sonic had no such luxury, only his speed and agility. He couldn’t waste time hanging in the air, he needed to get a hold of a surface somehow. Sonic triggered his air boost and aimed towards the pillar. He got close enough to touch it with his feet, and began accelerating towards the bottom, this time latched to the pillar. He kept running, moving even faster than his falling speed. Sonic didn’t see Ava at all. Minutes crawled by. There was nothing but the seemingly endless pit. A drop of sweat rolled across Sonic’s temple and flew off into the air. What was going on? Sonic looked around his surroundings. There was a light source somewhere, as the walls of the place were pulsating in a red light. He couldn’t quite make out the details on the walls as he was going too fast for that. Sonic looked back down, ahead of himself. The bottom was still out of his sight. What was going on?

Suddenly Sonic saw something glowing at the bottom. Something like... eyes. Sonic’s eyes widened. A loud screech filled the pit and the eyes started approaching Sonic. If he could’ve Sonic would’ve slowed down, but that wasn’t exactly an option. The eyes were a glowing mess of green and red. Sonic could hear water. He inhaled sharply. It couldn’t be... He wasn’t even in a super form. A maw made of water approached him at rapid speeds, and encased Sonic inside. Perfect Chaos. But how was Chaos even here?! He was supposed to be sealed within the Master Emerald with Tikal! There was nothing but water around Sonic now, and the currents were too strong for him to keep running along the pillar. They dragged Sonic with them, pulling him deeper into the depths. Sonic held his breath, but he didn’t know how long he could manage to keep it up. The water was making him panic, anyway. Sonic didn’t understand how it was possible. How was Chaos here? How was he Perfect Chaos? Why did the pit refuse to end?

Sonic could hear glass shattering. Something grabbed his arm, but Sonic couldn’t see anyone. He turned around in the water, facing the top of the pit. His eyes widened. Chaos was heading towards him again, causing currents and roaring violently. Sonic shut his eyes. This wasn’t happening.

Glass shattered again. Sonic fell down on the floor. The water was gone, and in front of him stood Ava, holding on to Sonic’s arm. Sonic coughed. It was nice to breathe again.

“Are you okay?” Ava frantically inquired. Sonic blinked a couple of times and looked around. They were in a room. The walls were covered in mirrors and odd tech. Behind Sonic was some kind of a... machine. And it was glowing red.

“Where are we?” Sonic coughed. “What happened?” Ava sighed in relief.

“I was so worried,” she admitted. “We’re in the core. You got caught up in a virtual reality.”

“I did?”

“It wasn’t one Infinite set up. It was from the Phantom Ruby. I guess it tried to protect itself,” Ava speculated. She pulled Sonic up from the floor. Sonic tried his fur. It was still wet. He looked at Ava.

“You saved me? How?”

“The prototype. I can break realities with it, if only for a short time. It’s stronger here, though, probably because we’re so close to the Phantom Ruby,” Ava explained. Sonic turned around to look at the machine. All kinds of cords came out of it, there were lights glowing in various colors, and on top of it, encased in glass, stood the Phantom Ruby. Sonic turned to look at Ava.

“Go for it,” Ava said. “You can probably deal better damage with yourself than I can with my wispon.” Sonic nodded. He jumped up in the air, readied himself and performed a homing attack against the glass. It didn’t shatter right away, but Sonic wasn’t giving up so easily. He began spindashing, attempting to break the glass that way. He heard a satisfying crack, bounced off and immediately homing attacked again. Glass flew all over the room as the hedgehog broke through, grabbed the Phantom Ruby from it’s spot and flung himself across the room. Suddenly an image flashed in front of Sonic’s eyes. All his friends. They were in a room somewhere. It was like last morning, except that everyone was... not so miserable. Everything was okay. The image disappeared just as soon as it had appeared, and Sonic landed onto the floor. The ground began shaking, and the power started to turn off as the Ruby was removed. Sonic turned to Ava, who rushed next to him.

“We need to go find Shadow!” Sonic stressed. Ava looked around.

“There’s not really an exit in this room,” she said, biting her lip. “But I could try something.”

“Try what?”

“The Phantom Ruby.” Sonic’s eyes widened.

“What?!”

“Infinite can teleport with it, right? I could try doing the same,” Ava explained.

“Are you sure that’ll work?”

“I’m not, but we need to get out of here. The power is going down, and I don’t know what kind of problems that could cause. And Shadow is in danger.” Sonic was quiet for a minute. He nodded.

“Do it.”

“Ready?”

“As ready as I could be.”

***

Shadow was running out of strength. He was doing all he could do hold Infinite’s knife at bay, but it kept getting closer and closer to his chest. Shadow knew he couldn’t handle a stab to his heart, even if his body was able recover from injuries faster than others. With the amount of chaos energy he was burning up, and the severity of such wound... no, there would be no hope for him. He couldn’t let Infinite do this.

“You sure love putting up a fight, don’t you, Shadow?” Infinite hissed. “But you’re going to have to face the consequences of your actions. You are a murderer.”

“Says you,” Shadow panted. “You’ve... killed so many people. They had... the right to live as well.”

“None of the scum on this rotten planet deserve to live!” Infinite yelled out, ripped his arm from Shadow’s grip and lunged his knife towards Shadow’s chest. Suddenly the jackal’s entire body spasmed, and he shrieked in pain. It didn’t stop his arm, only altered the course.

Shadow felt immense pain in his chest, and let out a shout of pain. Infinite’s body kept spasming, the jackal collapsed to the ground next to Shadow. His knife evaporated in the air, leaving behind ruby red cubes.

“Those bastards! They... THEY...!” Infinite kept screaming. Without a warning he teleported away, leaving Shadow to the ground.

Shadow touched his chest with his hand. His gloves soaked in something wet. Shadow coughed. He was bleeding. It wasn’t his heart, he’d be already gone if that was the case. Probably a lung. Either way the pain was immense. He couldn’t move. Shadow felt the chaos energy within himself moving about, locating the source of pain and beginning to fix the wound. He wasn’t hopeful. It was a messy cut, and he had burned up so much energy resisting Infinite and his illusion of strength. There was no way he was-

The sound of a distorting Phantom Ruby broke the silence of the wasteland.

“Shadow!” Sonic called out. He and Ava dropped to the ground, Ava holding the Phantom Ruby. Sonic rushed over to Shadow, Ava staying back. She inhaled sharply as Sonic reached his friend.

“Shadow, you... are you...” Shadow smiled faintly.

“Hey, Sonic...” he coughed. Sonic’s jaw starting shaking. He looked at Shadow’s chest. The hedgehog’s white fur was tainted with blood.

“S-Shads...” Sonic couldn’t speak. There was no way... This was Shadow, the ultimate life form, he couldn’t... He couldn’t just...

“I - I’ll get you, I’ll get you out of here Shads, we’ll, we’ll fix this, I-”

“S-Sonic...” Shadow interrupted him, and winced in pain. “It’s... a deep cut, it’s in my lung, you can’t... You can’t save me...” Shadow let out a faint chuckle. “Not this time.” He was breathing heavily. Sonic carefully reached out for Shadow’s chest, and moved the fur. He looked at the wound. It was bad. Very bad. A tear rolled down Sonic’s cheek.

“Shads, you... you can’t...” Sonic choked on his words.

“I need you, Shads, I... you’re... you’re my friend, I...”

“You have to be strong on your own, Sonic...” Shadow coughed up some blood. He sighed. “You have to live. You... you need to live.”

“Shads, don’t... Don’t go, I...”

“I’m... I’m so glad... I got to know you, Sonic...” Shadow smiled. “I’m so lucky that you were my friend...”

“S-Shadow...”

“Tell... Tell Rouge and Omega... that I’ll miss them. Please...” Shadow felt his vision get blurrier. The loss of blood was getting to him. He wouldn’t stay conscious for much longer.

“Sonic... Though the parting hurts...” Shadow smiled, a tear escaping from his eye. “The rest is in your hands...” Shadow’s chest stopped moving. Sonic bit his lip. He couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t move. He had been too late. Sonic, out of all the people... He couldn’t save his friend. Sonic clenched Shadow’s body. His tears drenched Shadow’s fur. He was so broken. So angry.  
Ava carefully placed her hand on Sonic’s shoulder. Sonic kept sobbing. Ava swallowed.

“...We need to move on,” she muttered. “Infinite is still out there.” Sonic swallowed, and tried to calm down his sobs. Ava handed him something.

“I... saw these laying around, I think... they’re his.” Sonic looked at the things he was now holding. Shadow’s limiters. Sonic felt like he could burst into tears again. Shadow had removed his limiters to fight. He must have... He must have burned up so much of his energy, just to slow down Infinite. Sonic took the limiters. There were only two, but Shadow had no limiters on his body.

“I only found those,” Ava said quietly. “The rest, the rest must be somewhere else...” Sonic put the limiters on his wrists. He had no other place to carry them, anyway. Ava looked at the hedgehog.

“I’m... I’m so sorry...” she whispered. Sonic said nothing. A tear fell down his cheek again.

“We... We need to take down Infinite,” Sonic uttered. “He can’t... He can’t go on.” Ava looked at Sonic. She bit her lip.

“Shadow left this for me. I... I need to take down Infinite.”


	13. Bandito

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twenty one pilots - Bandito

Sonic and Ava were running back towards the fortress. Ava held onto the Phantom Ruby in her hand. She could feel the presence of Infinite’s ruby through it. There was still a connection, even if it was faint and dying. Sonic was boosting through the wasteland, following Ava’s instructions to find the jackal as fast as possible. Infinite seemed to be heading for the fortress, but his teleporting was erratic. He seemingly couldn’t head for a certain location anymore. The prototype ruby was losing control. Sonic kept an eye on his surroundings. He felt empty, but focused on his task. The task Shadow had entrusted him.

“Sonic, stop,” Ava told Sonic. The hedgehog slowed down and came to a halt.

“What is it?” Sonic asked.

“There’s... There’s a lot of energy around here. Infinite... I think he’s near.” The two of them looked around. The wasteland laid in silence. Sonic took a deep breath.

“Infinite!” he yelled out. “Show yourself! I know you’re here!” The silence didn’t answer. At first.  
A red flash filled the nearby area. Infinite appeared on the ground. His ruby was cracked, and sparks flew out of it. The jackal was breathing heavily, and clutching his chest.

“You... YOU!” he yelled, and his arm spasmed. Ava pointed her wispon at Infinite, and Sonic prepared to launch himself for an attack.

“You did this to me. You tried to destroy me! My revenge... I will have my revenge...! I will revenge my family! For all the shit they had to go through!” A red flash pulsated through the area. Infinite’s ruby received another crack, and made the jackal’s body spasm. Sonic and Ava grabbed each other’s hands. Sonic initiated a boost, breaking the sound barrier instantly. Infinite backed off at the same speed Sonic approached him at. The virtual reality around the three was vibrating violently, not quite able to keep itself together. The prototype was running out of power. Infinite’s body kept getting spasms.

“I can still fight!” the jackal yelled out. “I will defeat you! Sonic! Ava!” Sonic took a deep breath.

“Ava,” he shouted out. “What happens if he loses his powers while we’re in a virtual reality?” Ava was quiet for a moment, trying to think.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “And I don’t want to find out.” Infinite flung cubes at Sonic and Ava. Ava pulled her wispon, and blew up the cubes before they could get even close to the duo. The reality was wavering. It wouldn’t stay together for very long. Sonic gritted his teeth. They had to get out of there.

“Can your wispon reach him?” Sonic asked. Ava shook her head.

“Not from over here. You... You need to throw me at him.”

“Wait, what?! Are you sure?”

“Go for it. I’ll try something.” Sonic, while still keeping up his speed, spun around and flung Ava towards Infinite. The jackal was caught by a surprise, and Ava caught hold of his arm. Infinite inhaled sharply.

“What are you doing, dog?!” he snarled, and spasmed again, letting out a shout. Ava’s fist clenched around the Phantom Ruby.

“Stopping you,” she answered. The Phantom Ruby began to shine. A red flash filled the area again, making Sonic shield his eyes. The light faded out shortly after. The reality was gone. Ava was on the ground, a few feet away from Sonic. The hedgehog rushed over, and helped the dog up. Ava thanked him.

“You okay?” Sonic asked. Ava nodded. They heard whimpering on their left. Infinite was on the ground, a good distance away from the two, obviously in great pain. The ruby in his chest was crackling, splitting into pieces. The jackal’s body kept going through spasms of pain.

“This... cannot be... This can’t be happening...” Infinite stuttered. He tried to get off the ground, but his body gave in. The ruby cracked again, and Infinite’s mask evaporated in the air. Sonic blinked a couple of times. The jackal was crying. Maybe it was out of pain?

“N-no..!” Infinite yelled out, trying to grab the cubes that his mask became, but they had no form anymore, and simply floated off into nothing. The jackal swallowed. The ruby would take him down with itself. He would die here. He couldn’t fulfill the promise he made to his family. His squad...

Ava blinked. She watched the jackal struggle on the ground. Sonic was simply staring at him. The action was understandable. Ava took a deep breath. She looked at the ruby in her hand, and then back to Infinite. A thought crossed her mind. Her fist clenched around the ruby. A red flash filled the area as Ava teleported.

“Ava!” Sonic called after her. He looked around the area. Infinite was gone as well. Sonic swallowed. There was no way Ava was going to abuse the Phantom Ruby’s powers just like Infinite, right?

***

The reality pulsed with red light. Infinite floated in the air, his prototype still crackling and sparking in his chest. The pain was unbearable. He looked at the dog floating in front of him. Infinite clutched the ruby in his chest. Tears fell down his cheeks and dropped into the nothingness below.

“What do you want from me,” he stammered. Ava remained quiet.

“What do you WANT from me?!” Infinite yelled out, his body spasming again. Ava observed the jackal carefully.

“I have no reason to forgive you,” she finally said. Infinite looked at her, breathing heavily.

“You have destroyed the world we live in. You’ve killed countless of people, including Eggman and Shadow. You’ve ruined the rest of my life,” Ava continued. “I am never going to forgive you.” Infinite stared at Ava. His ruby cracked in half again, sending spasms all over the jackal’s body again.

“Then kill me!” he screamed. “If you hate me so much then kill me now!”

“Don’t think for a second that I am like you!” Ava hissed. Infinite locked his eyes with Ava’s. They were glowing ruby red.

“I am tired, Infinite,” Ava kept going. “I am tired of your bullshit, and this war you started. Yes, you. Not Eggman, not anyone else. You, and your desire of destruction, are behind all of this.”

“It was Robotnik who took over this fucking world, not me!” Infinite protested.

“You were the one who tore it to pieces,” Ava scoffed. “You were the one who destroyed lives. Dare I say that Eggman tried to save them, to a certain degree at the very least.” Ava closed her eyes.

“If I were any less of a person, I would take justice to my own hands,” she said calmly. “But I am not like you.” Infinite inhaled sharply.

“It is what they deserved!” he shouted out. “They killed my family!”

“And you killed my team, and ruined my life.”

“So why won’t you kill me!? You have every reason to!” Ava observed Infinite again.

“A single person should never that much power in their hands,” she began. “No one should have the power to choose who get to live, and who don’t. Even if you’re the wisest person alive.” Infinite stared at her.

“How else is justice supposed to be served?” he lashed out. “The system is corrupted! The people making the choices are driven by their own gain!”

“What good is violence going to do about it?” Ava asked. “All it’ll do is cause more violence.”

“So what, I’m just supposed to sit here and accept it?!”

“I never said that,” Ava hissed. “There is shit in this world, I am more than well aware of it. A lot of things are not okay. But at the same time there are many good people in this world, and they’re trying to change things for the better. One person’s horrible deeds do not define everyone else.” Infinite stared at Ava. His ruby cracked again, causing pain to the jackal. Ava eyed him carefully.

“I believe in this world. I am not naive, but I believe in the people who live here. They have the power to change it for the better, if they just try.” She was quiet for a moment.

“And I believe... I believe that anyone can change for the better.” Infinite looked up at Ava again. The dog’s face lacked any and all emotion. The ruby she was holding began to shine.

“I will never, ever forgive you, Infinite,” she said. “And don’t you ever think I will.” The Phantom Ruby’s red flash illuminated the reality as Ava lunged for Infinite’s chest. The jackal shrieked. Ava’s hand, encased in an illusion, dove into Infinite’s chest, and grabbed the shards of his prototype. Ava pulled out her hand, along with the shards she was holding. The pain in Infinite’s chest was gone. All that was left was a scar where the prototype had used to be. The virtual reality around him and Ava had healed the wound. Infinite stared at Ava, his eyes wide. The dog said nothing. The Phantom Ruby flashed it’s red light again, shattering the final virtual reality.

***

Infinite couldn’t stand up quite yet. He sat on the ground, a few feet away from Sonic and Ava. The latter was holding the Phantom Ruby. Sonic was quiet. He didn’t know what to think of Ava’s decision to save Infinite.

“Why?” he whispered.

“I refuse to sink down on his level,” Ava whispered back. “And I have... certain ethics.” Sonic nodded. A part of him was ashamed of his decision to just watch Infinite’s suffering earlier on. But another part of him was still upset about Shadow. It wouldn’t be easy to see Infinite as anything other than a horrible villain.

“What will we do with the ruby?” Sonic asked. Ava looked at the gem. She sighed and closed her eyes.

“We need to destroy it,” she answered. “It’s too powerful. If it ends up in the wrong hands...” Ava opened her eyes, and swallowed. Sonic raised his eyebrow. Something was bothering Ava.

“What is it?” Sonic asked. Ava looked at him. For a brief moment a smile danced on her lips.

“Maybe I should’ve told you earlier, but...” She was quiet for a second.

“My brain... it’s permanently damaged. If I don’t have a ruby with me, I’ll... I’ll lose it. And I can’t live like that.” Sonic blinked.

“But you have the prototype.”

“It’s nothing but a regular gem if there’s no Phantom Ruby,” Ava smiled, sadness in her eyes. “It, too, draws it’s power from the real thing.” Sonic’s eyes widened. She couldn’t mean...

“Sonic, I... You’ve seen me without a ruby. I can’t... I can’t live like that. It hurts so much,” Ava explained. “But we can’t let the Phantom Ruby exist.”

“Ava, no, no, there has to be another way, there-”

“There is no other way, Sonic,” Ava interrupted him. “I... I knew this from the beginning. I’ve accepted this. I will destroy the Phantom Ruby... and I’ll go down with it.” Sonic blinked. This couldn’t happen. He couldn’t lose another friend so soon. He hadn’t known Ava for long but... But he didn’t want her to go. She couldn’t go.

“Ava-”

“I’m sorry, Sonic,” Ava apologized. “I’m sorry it has to end like this.”

“...it doesn’t.” Sonic and Ava turned around. Infinite, barely able to stand, was behind them.

“It doesn’t have to end like... that,” he said. Sonic frowned.

“What do you mean?” he asked. Infinite swallowed.

“You have no reason to trust me, I know. But... Ava, you don’t need to die,” he explained. “I could... I know that ruby, I know how it works, I could... I could fuse it with you.” Ava raised her eyebrow.

“How exactly would you do that? And what would it do to me?” Infinite looked at Ava.

“I would... move the power from the ruby into your body. It would fix you, well, prevent you from... being like, well, that. The power is what prevents it in the first place. You couldn’t use it without the actual ruby I don’t think, it would just... be.” Sonic stared at Infinite.

“And why wouldn’t you just take the ruby and go on with destroying the world?” he asked. Infinite swallowed.

“I can barely move as it is. And Ava, you still have your prototype. You could use it to stop me, easily. But I guess you don’t have to trust me.” Sonic side-eyed Ava. He had never seen Ava use her prototype for anything other than breaking realities. He wasn’t sure if it could access the full power of the Phantom Ruby at all.

“What makes you think my prototype could do that?” Ava asked, voicing Sonic’s thoughts. Infinite let out a short chuckle.

“They all can do that, you know they can. You just didn’t want to break yours, since the other prototypes are so fragile. But I know you wouldn’t hold back if I took the actual Phantom Ruby,” he explained. Ava looked at Sonic, her eyes shifting to Infinite and back to the hedgehog. Sonic nodded. If Infinite would try anything, he was ready to stop the jackal. Ava handed the Phantom Ruby to Infinite. The jackal looked at the ruby, then Ava, unsure if she really meant it. Ava sighed.

“Get on with it,” she ordered. Infinite nodded and bit his lip. The Phantom Ruby glowed in his hands. Infinite carefully took it near Ava’s chest. Ava’s and his eyes both glowed the same red as the Phantom Ruby. Slowly the red faded from Infinite’s eyes. The ruby lost it’s glow as well. But Ava’s eyes remained red, glowing as bright as the Phantom Ruby had used to. Infinite pulled the ruby away from Ava. It instantly shattered into pieces. Ava inhaled sharply, but her mind was intact. Nothing was hurting. She could still think straight. Ava looked at Infinite. The jackal avoided her eyes.

“Sonic,” Ava broke the silence. “Go find the others. It’s time to go home.”


	14. End

Sonic sat down on the grass. He was on a little hill outside of Red Bay City. A variety of wildflowers grew there, and he had figured it would be the perfect place for Shadow. A few months had passed since the mess that happened at Eggman’s fortress. Sonic had been visiting Shadow’s memorial every week since they had buried the hedgehog. It was important to him. Sonic looked at the stone in front of him. It wasn’t anything fancy or proper, they hadn’t had the time or resources for anything like that. It was just a pretty flat stone, and Tails had carved a ring symbol on it. They had figured Shadow wouldn’t have wanted it to be anything fancy, anyway.

“Hey,” Sonic said. He received no answer.

“We’ve been doing a lot this week, actually,” he continued. “Rouge, Omega, Amy and Knuckles have been working on to restore G.U.N. But like, they’re trying to make it better. They’ve had to talk a lot to all kinds of government people and politicians and stuff. They’ve been kinda doubtful about it since we’re not like, humans or whatever. But we’re hopeful about this.” Sonic was quiet for a minute.

“Rouge and Omega are still trying really hard. They... they miss you a lot, too,” he said quietly. The wind passed by, playing with the flowers and trees. Sonic looked up at the sky.

“Tails, Silver and Ava, and the Chaotix, they’ve been helping people with rebuilding the cities. And they’ve been looking for people who’ve gotten lost. They’ve been working really hard, too,” he continued. Sonic sighed.

“I... I haven’t talked about Infinite, but... Ava saved him. And then he saved her. I still don’t really understand why, but I guess that’s okay. We’re hiding him right now, so the government doesn’t get their hands on him. We figured it’s better that way.” He was once again quiet for a moment. Talking about this wasn’t easy.

“I don’t trust him,” Sonic finally said. “Not after everything. I can’t.” He looked at the ground.

“But he’s... I think he’s really trying. Maybe. He doesn’t really hang around us, but he’s been... he’s been helping. Kind of. He goes with Tails, Silver and Ava sometimes. Not always. I don’t think Tails and Silver like him very much.” Sonic looked at the memorial. He suddenly felt like crying. He wiped his eye with his hand.

“I’m just... I just miss you so much,” he stammered. “You always knew what to do, you were the... you were so smart, and I just... I don’t know what to do, like sure I’m trying to help everyone but I don’t know if I’m not doing enough...” Sonic lapsed into sobs. He couldn’t help it. Shadow had been one of his closest friends, despite everything. Is this what he had felt like when Sonic disappeared?

Sonic heard footsteps behind him. He turned his head. It was Infinite. The jackal stopped in his tracks when he saw Sonic’s eyes, and was about to go back.

“It’s okay,” Sonic assured before Infinite could leave. He turned to face the memorial again. Infinite stood in place, unsure what to do. He cleared his throat.

“Miles wanted me to look for you, he uh... he needed your help with something,” Infinite said. Sonic nodded.

“Tell him I’ll be there soon,” he answered, and sighed. Infinite didn’t leave. He went through the contents of the bag he had with him, and handed something to Sonic.

“Amy uh, she made it for you. She’s been worried about your eating habits, I think,” Infinite explained. Sonic accepted the gift. It was a sandwich. He stared at it. I guess Amy was right. He had been eating a bit erratically as of late.

“Thanks,” he said, and got up from his spot. He and Infinite left the hill. They walked in silence for a moment, before Infinite cleared his throat again.

“Are you, uh, alright?” he asked. Sonic side-eyed the jackal.

“Yeah,” he lied. Infinite looked at him curiously.

“That’s what I used to tell my squad,” he smiled a bit. Sonic didn’t want to talk about himself, and changed the topic, now that they were talking anyway.

“They were the reason you, well, wanted to burn the world, huh?” he asked, as carefully as he could. Infinite looked away. He was silent for a moment.

“...wouldn’t you do the same for your friends? If the world treated them like shit all the time?” he asked after a while. Sonic shook his head.

“They wouldn’t want that,” he answered. Infinite pulled back his ears. The two were silent again. Infinite side-eyed Sonic carefully.

“Are you... still upset at me? For the things I did?” the jackal asked. Sonic was quiet. He looked at the ground.

“...I mean, you killed my friend,” he eventually said. “That’s... yeah.” Infinite swallowed.

“...but I guess you’re trying to be better now,” Sonic continued. “I think that’s important. I like to think that every one of us has the potential to be a good person, whatever that means.”

“I’m not a good person,” Infinite argued.

“You could be, eventually,” Sonic responded. “Or a better one, anyway.” Infinite chuckled a bit.

“That’s what Apollo used to tell me,” he smiled. “She was always the one who cheered us up.” Sonic raised his eyebrow.

“Apollo?”

“My uh... she was in my squad,” Infinite explained. He calmed down from his memory.

“S-sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Sonic assured. They walked in silence again. The city, still in ruins, was just ahead of them. Infinite cleared his throat again.

“I just...” he stuttered. “I just hope you can forgive me one day.” Sonic raised an eyebrow again. The sentence caught him off-guard. He didn’t know if he could do that, after everything Infinite had done. The jackal noticed Sonic’s apparent confusion and looked away again. He rubbed his eyed with his index finger and thumb.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m just... I’m just really tired today,” he hurried to explain himself. Sonic looked at Infinite. He turned around and looked at Shadow’s hill. Sonic sighed.

“Maybe you’ll get there one day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone, I really have appreciated all your support and comments and whatnot. This fic was my first one in three years, so I was a bit worried about writing it, but I'm glad you all have enjoyed it. Here's to many more! (if I get any good ideas that is lmao)
> 
> \- Hedgy/Purp


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